


bloom

by RorschachIris



Category: Control (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Consistent characterization? Don't know her, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff, Jesse is just waiting for everyone else to catch up, Mildly Canon Divergent, Not Beta Read, One Shot Collection, Secret Admirer, Simon and Langston are bffs, Who would have thought it would be for Control?, clueless idiots, my first attempt at smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 09:15:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27968174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RorschachIris/pseuds/RorschachIris
Summary: Collection of one-shots; see individual chapters for tags/summaries.Chapter 1: bloomChapter 2: coffeeChapter 3: gamesChapter 4: lip gloss
Relationships: Emily Pope/Simon Arish
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	1. bloom

**Author's Note:**

> So I was recently introduced to Control, and I quickly developed massive crushes on both Simon and Emily. And now, here I am.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Hiss invasion, Simon and Emily, both still quite new to their respective positions as Head of Security and Head of Research, meet each other for the first time. Things sort of devolve from there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Tags:**
> 
>   * Fluff
>   * Secret admirer
>   * Minor violence
>   * Sort of AU (social media is a thing)
>   * Simon is a sweetheart (but sometimes not very bright)
> 


Simon isn’t used to responsibility, to being in the spotlight. To having his photo on the walls of the security center, for fuck’s sake. Up until literally a week ago, he was just in charge of security in Maintenance, which wasn’t exactly the most elaborate or taxing responsibility—but Head of Security? That’s a different ball game altogether. 

He’d survived a month of lockdown, of gunning down his Hiss-corrupted colleagues and even some of his Hiss-corrupted ranger buddies from his rookie days, guys he’d known for years; he’d gone through numerous desks, packing the more personal, more precious effects into boxes to be shipped off to loved ones (or, in some cases, to be donated); and after all that chaos and bloodshed and trauma, he’d stood numbly to attention in Jesse’s office as she’d unceremoniously promoted him to Head of Security, minutes after revealing to him that Salvador was dead.

Simon likes to think that he’s a pretty stolid guy—level-headed and dependable in times of danger and uncertainty. But after the Hiss situation, and especially after his promotion, he feels exposed, like a raw nerve. Like anything could happen, and he’d be helpless in the face of it. 

He shifts from foot to foot in the elevator on his way up to have his usual biweekly check-in with Jesse. The thought of the Hiss is making his palms sweat, he realizes; he wipes his palms on his pants, muttering a curse, and switches his report to his other hand.

The elevator grinds to a stop, and the doors roll open, revealing a slender woman with a flash of platinum blonde hair and a furrowed brow, totally immersed in something on her clipboard. She glances up—a flash of sky blue—and steps into the elevator, feeling for the button panel and punching in the Executive floor, not realizing that Simon is already on his way there.

The elevator groans to life, ascending at its usual snail’s-pace. The woman mutters something under her breath, tapping her pen against her clipboard subconsciously as she thinks. Her eyes flicker up again, landing on Simon, just for a moment. She looks back down at her clipboard. Looks up at him again. He watches, unable to look away, as her eyes traverse his face and slowly light up with curiosity.

“I haven’t met you before, have I?” She says, smiling uncertainly at him. Her pristine, swept-back short hair and slightly square jaw and plain dress pants had seemed intimidatingly masculine, but her smile brings an unexpectedly girlish charm to her face.

“Um,” Simon says, suddenly uncomfortable. He looks away. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Oh! I’m Pope. Emily Pope.” She sticks her pen behind her ear and reaches out with her free hand to shake his.

“Pope?” Simon echoes, clasping her hand hesitantly, remembering too late that his hand is still slightly damp. “Oh, hang on. You’re the new Head of Research, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, I-I’m Simon. Simon Arish.”

“Arish? Then you’re the new Head of Security?”

Even though they’re pretty close in height, something about her makes him feel too big. Too clumsy. He takes an involuntary step back. 

“Yeah,” he says as his shoulder bumps against the side of the elevator. “That’s me.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you. Finally. Are you on your way to see Jesse?” 

“Yep. I’ve got a, uh. Check-in to go to.”

“Yeah,” she says, smiling winningly as she raps her clipboard with her pen. “Report to drop off, myself. Jesse seems to loathe email—or anything involving computers, for that matter.”

Simon, unsure of how to respond, makes a polite noise.

The rest of the elevator ride is silent and interminable; Simon keeps his eyes trained straight ahead and his hands at his sides, even as his palms slicken again with sweat. He chances a glance at her; her eyes are lowered once again to her clipboard, and something about her—he can’t look away. The long, feminine sweep of her eyelashes, the delicate point of her nose and chin. Head of Research—that’s not a light position, not by far. She must be incredibly smart and capable to step into Darling’s shoes.

She seems to sense his stare, and glances at him; another flash of sky blue. He looks down at his shoes, the tips of his ears burning.

When the elevator doors open ( _finally_ ), he hesitates for a moment, unsure of whether he should keep in step with her or simply charge ahead. He chooses the latter, practically falling out of the elevator with a muttered “See you around”.

He doesn’t hear her footsteps behind him as he all but runs for Jesse’s office.

\---

He runs into her again, about a week later, just as he’s starting to forget the whole elevator incident. He’s heading up to Executive once again, this time for a quick cup of coffee (everyone knows that the Executive sector break room has the best coffee in the building). He opts for the stairs, feeling uncharacteristically spry, and takes the steps two at a time.

He charges through the stairwell door. And knocks whomever is stepping into the stairwell clean off their feet.

He catches himself against the door and turns to help the person back to their feet, an apology on his tongue, when he realizes that it’s Emily.

“Oh gosh,” he mutters, and she just sits there, staring up at him for a moment, an unreadable expression in her face—and there’s that burning feeling in the tips of his ears again. 

“I’m sorry,” he says as he picks up her clipboard and offers her a hand. “I didn’t mean to—I wasn’t looking where I was going—I’m so sorry—” 

Her face breaks out into a smile, and she grabs his (thankfully mostly dry) hand and hefts herself to her feet. “It’s all right,” she assures him as she takes her clipboard back. “I wasn’t looking where I was going, either.”

“Are you—are you all right?”

“Oh, I’ve had worse spills.” She waves a slender hand dismissively, her wide mouth curving and her eyes twinkling with amusement. There it is again—that sky blue. It makes him wish, for the first time, that the House had windows.

“Okay,” he mutters, casting his eyes down and edging away. The smile on her face falls a millimeter, and she seems about to say something, and he isn’t sure if he can handle being around her any longer.

So, once again, he turns tail and runs.

\---

The Head of Security and the Head of Research normally have little to do with each other, so he doesn’t see much of Emily for a few weeks after the stairwell incident. Glimpses in the cafeteria, or down a hallway, or in a meeting room in passing—of that charmingly expressive mouth, the clean sweep of platinum hair, a flash of sky blue. 

There’s a debrief meeting after Dylan wakes up, to which Jesse invites all the Heads, and Emily presents her research to the room. Her notes are clean and clear, her descriptions and theories and findings carefully worded. If she's nervous, she doesn't show it—and it only makes Simon even more uncomfortable. He spends the entire meeting hunched in his chair, looking at anything and anyone but her. 

He catches a glimpse of her back as they’re leaving the meeting. He makes the mistake of letting his eyes fall from the back of her head to the slight curve of her waist, the gentle slope of her bottom under her unflattering pants. He snaps his eyes away before anyone can see, scowling darkly to himself.

_Jesus Christ._ What the fuck is wrong with him? He’s no gentleman, but that doesn't excuse—

He glances back at her. Sees her looking at him. Realizes, belatedly, that he’s still scowling. 

Well, he tries to reason with himself, it's too late to do anything about any of this. So he adds the meeting room fiasco to the elevator and stairwell fiascos, squeezes by her out the door, and, with what he hopes is a confident, purposeful, not-at-all-self-conscious stride, flees for the elevator.

\---

Emily, upon first seeing Simon in the elevator, had taken in his dark blue uniform and neatly combed hair and arm patch, and assumed he was just another security grunt, perhaps a sector security chief. She remembers the odd, hunched-in, self-conscious way he stood; his work-worn, strong-looking hands, clenched at his sides; his furrowed eyebrows and protruding, slightly pointed ears; his soft-looking lips framed by a strong jaw. Kinda cute. Not that it mattered. 

When he introduced himself as the new Head of Security, she almost didn't believe him. Salvador had been self-assured and impatient, exuding confidence, wearing his authority and tenure with ease—a typical Head. This new guy, this Simon Arish, projected an entirely different vibe. Qualified, perhaps. But not confident. Not ready. 

Sort of reminded her of herself.

After the meeting, she watches as he hurries away from the meeting room, in the direction of the elevator. Before she can allow herself to dwell on it, Jesse jogs up to her side and immediately begins a stream of incisive questions that force her to turn her thoughts from the Head of Security to Dylan Faden.

But later, in the quiet of her office, she stares at a sheaf of papers sitting on her desk, having lost concentration several minutes ago. Thinking.

Simon had most definitely been scowling at her at the end of the meeting. The same scowl he'd worn in the elevator, and at the stairwell.

After their first meeting in the elevator, she'd glimpsed him around the House from time to time, exchanging words with his staff, nodding confusedly but politely to Ahti’s half-Finnish, half-literally-translated-English ramblings, engaging in what appeared to be light banter with Jesse—or just stumping along in those horrible standard-issue black shoes, looking thoughtfully at the ground. He hadn't necessarily exuded gregarious charm, but he also definitely hadn't been scowling or visibly uncomfortable.

But every time he saw her, that scowl would reappear on his face, that tense discomfort in his shoulders. She frowns at her notes. Had she offended him at some point? Had she said or done something in the elevator…?

She raps a pen against her desk, mildly annoyed. She isn't usually so bothered by what other people think; vague, unexplained dislike from colleagues is an occupational hazard that most women of science must deal with from time to time. 

But she pictures Simon and the way his expression changed instantly upon recognizing her at the stairwell, and she can't help but wonder.

\---

She's walking with Jesse a few days later, having to maintain a clipped pace to keep up with the Director. They'd run into each other outside Archives, and Jesse had offered to walk with her to lunch as they discussed necessary upgrades to the Panopticon. Jesse, unlike Trench, likes to walk and talk. Efficient. Plus, it makes the trip less boring.

They make it to just outside the cafeteria, and Jesse pauses mid-sentence to wave at someone.

“Simon! Just in time,” Jesse says as she makes her way across the crowded entryway to Simon, who looks like a deer caught in headlights. 

“We were just talking about Panopticon upgrades,” Jesse explains, “and I was thinking about the list of potential security upgrades I had you compile the other day—”

Jesse turns, fully expecting Emily to be on her heels, and is surprised to see the Head of Research standing rooted to the spot where they'd been a moment ago.

“Emily?” Jesse calls, confused.

“Sorry, I—I just remembered I have a meeting in Research in five,” Emily replies, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the murmur and shuffle of hungry FBC personnel. She points vaguely in a direction that is most definitely not Research.

“I'll see you later,” Emily says, and then she's being buffeted by the crowd away from the cafeteria, a spot of fast-disappearing blonde.

“Oh,” Jesse mutters. “Well, that's okay.”

She turns to look at Simon, and finds him staring after Emily with an unclear expression.

She considers her Head of Security for a moment. “Something up?” She tries.

“No ma’am,” Simon mumbles distractedly. He hasn't called her “ma’am” in weeks.

Not one to interfere in others’ relationship troubles, Jesse gestures toward the cafeteria and asks Simon if he's eaten yet. He looks at her as though he's just now registered her presence, and replies no, he hasn't eaten yet. He follows his boss into the cafeteria as she begins parsing through his list of upgrades, asking for elaboration from time to time, and he has to force Emily out of his thoughts for the time being.

\---

That night, sitting in front of a muttering television set in his tiny, poorly-lit living room, a slightly-drunk Simon has a thought as he scrolls through social media.

Might Emily have a social media profile, somewhere? There are so many platforms nowadays, so many places to make accounts and post photos and share questionably personal information about oneself.

He considers the enticing prospect for a moment longer, before dropping his phone in his lap and fixing his gaze on the TV. No. He won't stalk a coworker on the Internet. That’s not a level he's prepared to sink to just yet. Besides, employees of the FBC don't have the time to maintain online presences, and the thought of having the FBC monitoring their accounts would probably deter most from bothering.

But the weight of his phone on his thigh and the thought of catching a glimpse into Emily's personal life tugs constantly at the back of his mind, refusing to let him focus on Jeopardy reruns. And before long, his phone is in his hand, and he’s typing “emily pope” into a search bar.

He checks MySpace, YouTube. LinkedIn, for shits and giggles—how on earth would the Head of Research at the FBC explain her job on a career website? But none of those sites seem to yield anything.

He hits gold on Facebook, which surprises him—Emily doesn't strike him as the type to bother with the more newfangled platforms. He scrolls past a brunette Emily Pope Stewards, a dark-skinned Emilia Pope, an Emily Pope with a cat for a profile photo (someow, he's willing to bet that Emily doesn't have a cat). 

And then he sees her—a spot of straw and blonde in a sunny field under a cloudless blue sky. 

His heart jumps into his throat. 

He clicks on her account.

It's predictably bare; no public list of friends, no extensive pages of photos and likes and clever status posts. Just her name, and three photos.

He taps on the earliest one, posted six years ago; it's of a field of sunflowers. The giant flowers stretch as far as the eye can see, receding to specks of vibrant color along the horizon. No Emily. 

Simon stares for a moment. Perhaps she likes sunflowers? The photo is six years old, though.

He clicks on the second photo, from about five years ago. She’s standing in the frame, in front of a brick wall, grinning politely. Her platinum hair is long and loose, and she's holding a plastic-wrapped bouquet of pink roses and wearing a graduation cap and gown. 

Simon hums thoughtfully; Alex Trebek says something in the background and the audience chortles. Roses at a graduation are a common occurrence, but maybe she has a thing for flowers.

He moves onto the final photo, which happens to be her current profile photo, posted only about a year ago. She has her trademark short hair, mostly hidden under a wide straw hat, and is wearing jean cutoffs, a faded t-shirt featuring a band he doesn’t recognize, and a pair of sunglasses. Her smile is brilliant, and she’s striking a somewhat awkward but entirely joyful pose.

He squints at the sunny background and makes out rows of lavender plants under a clear blue sky. 

Are lavender plants flowers? Or are they...herbs, maybe? Simon rubs his forehead distractedly; he decides he's too drunk to have that debate, and, for the sake of simplicity, lumps lavender in with roses and sunflowers.

So the working hypothesis here is that Emily Pope likes flowers. He thinks he can work with that.

_Work with what, exactly?_ The dregs of his inhibitions kick in. A six-year-old photo of sunflowers, a bouquet of graduation roses, and a field of maybe-herbs do not constitute solid evidence. Besides, what exactly does he plan to do?

What _does_ he plan to do?

He sits frozen, phone in hand. Thinking.

\---

The next day, he's standing outside Emily’s door, wiping his palms on his pants, a folder of test results from Jesse clenched under one arm. 

He'd been at Jesse’s office a few minutes ago, for their biweekly check-in; she'd asked him to run a report to Emily’s office, apologizing for the imposition and seemingly forgetting that the pneumatic system was finally functional; and he, without looking at her, had insisted that it was no inconvenience at all.

“Honestly, you don't have to do this,” Jesse had insisted, watching him maybe a little closely. “You're not a messenger boy.”

“It's no trouble,” he'd replied, hoping that his tone, if not his face, was nonchalant. “It's on the way back to my office, anyway.”

Jesse had wordlessly handed him the slender folder of papers, then, and he’d accepted it, before standing and excusing himself. 

And now, there isn't anything to do but knock.

He knocks.

“Come in,” Emily responds, sounding distracted. He takes a breath and opens her door.

She looks up and stills upon recognizing him; he can't tell if it's with tension or anticipation. 

“Um,” he says, fumbling with the folder before holding it up. “I've got...Jesse wanted me to drop this off with you.” 

“Oh,” she says, frowning slightly. He steps hesitantly into her office, and when she doesn't object, he heads over to her desk. 

He walks slowly, taking the opportunity to observe her office. A futon is shoved up against the far wall. Shelves and drawers, stuffed full with books and binders, line the other walls; on her desk, a laptop swims among a mass of papers, an assortment of instruments he doesn't recognize, and office supply organizers overwhelmed with pens and binder clips and sticky notes and staples. The ground is surprisingly clear. He notes that there are no flowers or plants.

Upon reaching her desk, he offers up the folder. She takes it, staring curiously at him; he looks at anything but her. 

“Thanks,” she says quietly. He glances up at her face, her cautiously smiling eyes, and almost immediately feels that burning sensation in the tips of his ears.

He mutters something that might be “No problem” and ducks quickly out of her office. 

Emily sets the folder down on her desk and rests her chin in her hand, frowning.

\---

The next day, in the morning, she finds a simple vase of slightly-smushed sunflowers outside her door.

She pauses, the key to her office in hand, and frowns down at the flowers. She didn't order them, and she has no significant other, no family, who would want to randomly surprise her with flowers.

She picks up the vase, careful not to spill any water, and checks in vain for an attached note. She unlocks her office door, flicks on her lights, and wanders to her desk, setting the sunflowers down on a patch of exposed desk. Dropping her bag on the ground under her desk, she sits down in her swivel chair and stares at the sunflowers.

It feels like it’s been a lifetime since she’s seen sunflowers. The sight reminds her of adolescence, of home: just outside town, there was an old farmer who occasionally opened up his sunflower field to the public. She remembers late afternoons spent with her sister as they admired the sea of golden orange under vaulted blue summer skies; she remembers being convinced that she could see the sunflowers moving as they swiveled their brilliant faces to follow the sun.

The fond, unexpected memories hit her somewhere beneath her sternum, and she stares thoughtfully at the bouquet as the ache of nostalgia throbs in her chest.

Her family is long gone; she’s been on her own for years. So who could possibly have left these sunflowers for her?

\---

A week after the sunflowers, she finds a small bouquet of peachy-pink spray roses sitting outside her door in a charming painted clay jar—once again, with no note. 

Using binder clips and cheap twine, she hangs the sunflowers upside down from the low ceiling to dry, and sticks the sunflower vase on top of a shelf; she places the jar of delicate spray roses on her desk, where the sunflowers had been.

She sits in her chair and admires the roses for a moment. They're in full bloom, without a blemished petal or shriveled leaf in sight; their long, springy stems arc gracefully from the narrow mouth of the jar. Just the thing to bring a bit of light and nature and spontaneity to her office.

But the question remains: who is leaving flowers for her? And why?

\---

The third bouquet—a fragrant bundle of lavender, tied off with an elegant ivory silk ribbon—appears on the morning of an escaped Altered Item event. 

Emily’s just stuck the lavenders in the sunflower vase and cleared a patch of desk next to the spray roses for it, making sure that the lavenders are near enough for her to catch a whiff of their heady aroma from time to time, when the House-wide alarm suddenly blares.

Too soon. It’s too soon after the Hiss invasion. The sound of the alarm sets her teeth on edge, and her spine prickles as she jumps to her feet.

There’s no indication that the Hiss has returned, but Emily throws on her HRA anyway, digging it out from the detritus of her tiny office closet and fumbling with the straps. Then, she’s grabbing her laptop and clipboard, a few loose sheets of paper, a blue pen—and she’s running for the elevator, on her way to Executive. 

As the elevator doors roll open, she finds herself face to face with Simon. He’s standing in that hunched-in way again, his gloved hands clenched around a pistol, his handsome face contorted with unease; in addition to his Black Rock active-duty gear, he also has his HRA strapped around his chest.

No time for curious stares, for scowls. She hurries in, pushing past other personnel to stand by Simon.

“Do you know what’s going on?” She demands quietly, flinching as the alarm wails once again. 

“No,” Simon mutters through his teeth, eyes distant; he seems every bit on edge as she feels. “Haven’t heard from Jesse or anyone in Executive yet. Nothing from Ahti, either.”

“Well,” Emily replies tightly. “I guess we’ll soon see.”

“Yeah,” Simon murmurs, shifting from foot to foot; he glances at her with an expression that is oddly momentarily devoid of tension or discomfort. “I guess we will.”

\---

An hour later, the Heads have learned from Langston and Jesse that an Altered Item has broken loose and is running amok in Containment; Simon and Marshall’s replacement, a built, unsmiling man named Albert Kim, have distributed additional head gear and metal shields to a composite team of rangers and security personnel, and are down in Containment with the intent of locating and isolating the Altered Item. 

Emily sits in the Boardroom, typing away on her laptop. The Altered Item is an old industrial barn fan—a massive stainless-steel contraption, capable of generating cyclonic winds with enough force to turn office objects into projectiles. It was last seen tearing through the security center, with the apparent intent of reaching the medical wing.

So far, nothing that Simon and Albert’s teams have thrown at the fan have disabled or contained it; so far, nothing in the Item’s records have sparked any ideas among Emily’s research team.

She pushes back from the table, frowning. The relief she’d felt when Jesse informed the Heads that the emergency was not Hiss-related has given way to frustration. There are a few conjectures on record, a few ideas she could run with. But there isn’t enough data to suggest a clear path forward; the Item had been too dangerous to observe closely when it was contained, and had been locked away before the full panel of preliminary tests could be run.

She stares at the blank columns of missing data. Well. No time like the present.

There isn’t anymore heavy-duty protective equipment stored in the Executive sector, and she probably wouldn’t be able to wear it anyway. _Oh well._ She hooks a paranatural electrometer to her belt loop, plugs a multifunction recorder into her laptop, and snaps her laptop shut.

One of her research specialists gets to his feet as she turns to head towards the elevator.

“Pope? Where—where are you going?”

“We’re short on data,” she explains, not slowing her stride. “We’re trying to operate with an arm tied behind our backs here. I’m going to see if I can get any additional readings.”

“All due respect, ma’am, Director Faden told us to stay put—”

“I know what she said. I’ll clear with her once I get down there.”

“Oh—Okay—but ma’am—”

Emily punches the elevator button and flashes what she hopes is a smile at the specialist. “I’ll be fine.”

The young man stares at her uncertainly for a beat, looking a little green around the gills, as though he expects this to be the last time he sees his boss. She doesn’t like the look, so she turns her attention to the elevator doors.

The elevator doors finally roll open, and the specialist straightens his spine. “Good luck, ma’am,” he says; it seems for a moment like he’s considering saluting. But she punches the Containment sector button, and he turns away and jogs back to the Boardroom as the elevator doors close.

\---

“Dammit,” Emily grumbles, tapping uselessly at her laptop. The recorder is working fine, but she isn’t close enough to get any meaningful data. Nothing she’s tried in the past few hours has worked.

“I know,” Jesse responds tiredly; her hair is a bird’s nest, and she hasn’t bothered changing out of her blood- and sweat-stained clothes. “But you can’t get any closer than this. Without the proper protective gear, it’s too dangerous.”

“I just need a few data points, Jesse. Just something to work with.”

“Could one of Simon’s guys run the tests for you? Or one of Albert’s rangers?”

“No.” Emily shakes her head. “Some of the tests require manual fine-tuning. You have to know what you’re doing.”

At that moment, a group of men appears in the doorway of the safe zone. There’s a distant rumble—presumably the barn fan, on another one of its intermittent rampages—and everyone in the room tenses for a moment, expecting one of the walls to suddenly blow to pieces. 

Emily turns to watch as the men straggle into the room. At the tail of the small group walks Simon, his shoulders hunched with fatigue, his heavy metal shield dragging along the ground. He drops the shield at his feet and pulls his helmet off his head, and Emily glimpses trails of sweat running down his temples, a few dark strands of wavy hair plastered against his forehead. He looks tired and frustrated. 

_And,_ her brain supplies unhelpfully, _awfully handsome._

Jesse is by his side in an instant. “Any updates?”

“No,” he grits out, slinging his helmet under his arm and dragging a gloved hand across his forehead. “Nothing we’ve tried seems to have affected the fan. We’ve tried targeting its power pack, its blades, but none of that seems to do anything. It blew a _filing cabinet_ at us, Jesse.”

Jesse’s eyes go wide. 

Simon glances down at her belt. “Are you sure the Service Weapon…?”

“Yeah,” Jesse says ruefully, her hand flickering to her belt, where the paranatural weapon hangs silent and still. “None of the mods seem to do anything to the fan. I tried talking to the Board through the hotline, but they were unsurprisingly unhelpful.”

“Nothing from Ahti, either?”

“No one’s been able to find him. Last we know of, he was headed out for ‘vacation.’”

“Huh.” Simon frowns.

Emily wanders up to them as they speak; thankfully, Simon seems too tired to scowl at her when he notices her presence.

“Simon,” she says uncertainly, “do you think I could join you, next time you head out?”

His cautious expression turns confused. “What? Why would you want to do that?”

“None of the readings that I’m getting from this distance are any use,” Emily explains. “I need to get closer.”

Jesse shifts uncomfortably. “Look—I mean, I’ll say it again. It’s dangerous, Emily. Without the proper gear—”

“I could escort you,” Simon cuts in quietly.

Emily, fully prepared for a denial, is struck dumb; Jesse looks furious. “W-what?” 

“McClain isn’t going to be able to get back out there,” Simon elaborates, looking down at the ground as he points over his shoulder. A short distance away, a slender dark-haired young man is sitting on the ground, his face pinched with pain as two of his teammates help him out of his gear. 

“He hurt his leg,” Simon elaborates. “Needs medical attention immediately. You two are about the same build. You could take his gear.”

“That—” Emily stutters. “That—would work.”

She turns to look at Jesse with a silent plea; Jesse glares between her Head of Security and her Head of Research, before sighing in defeat.

“Fine,” she grits out. “But if something happens to you— _anything_ —you come back here straightaway. Both of you. So I can kill you myself.”

They watch as the Director stalks off.

“So.” Emily mutters, suddenly nervous. “Um.”

“Yeah.” Simon scratches the back of his neck, looking away. “Let me get McClain’s gear, and we can get you set up.”

Emily stands awkwardly to the side as Simon trots over to McClain and exchanges a few words with the younger man. McClain glances in her direction curiously, before shrugging—and then yelping in pain as two medics heft him onto a stretcher. Simon then bends down and begins gathering up pieces of armor as McClain is carted off to the elevator. Emily, feeling spectacularly useless, hurries over and helps Simon with the rest of the gear, and they find a quieter corner of the room for her to set her equipment down.

“Here,” Simon mutters, stepping forward and removing his gloves. “Normally, getting into gear is a two-person process.”

“Okay,” Emily says, and holds her limbs out obediently in various positions as Simon helps her into McClain’s bloodied Black Rock armor. There’s the slightest brush of his bare fingers against the back of her neck as he tightens the strap of her chestplate, and against the sensitive flesh of her inner wrists as he helps her into the armguards—and she definitely isn’t sure how she feels about him kneeling at her feet, helping her step into the shinguards. 

“Good to go,” he proclaims after he helps her into McClain’s foul-smelling helmet. She scrutinizes his face for a moment, but his eyes are averted. Blank. And for a moment, she wishes she could see—

“Thanks,” she says, cutting off her own thoughts. “When do we head out?”

“We’re taking three-hour shifts. So Albert’s team is going to need us to relieve them in about two and a half hours. Unless they need emergency backup, in which case we’ll leave immediately.”

“Sounds good.” Emily reclips her electrometer to her belt and wiggles her fingers into the too-large gloves before picking up her laptop and recorder. “I’ll be ready to go.”

He nods silently, his golden brown eyes finding hers for a moment—

—and there it is again. That scowl.

They look away from each other simultaneously. 

\---

“We need to get closer,” Emily yells over the sound of wind and the screech of metal. 

“ _What?_ ” Simon yells in reply.

“We need to get closer!”

He shakes his head. “I’m not taking you any closer than this.” They both flinch as a printer bounces over the desk they’re currently taking cover under.

“You don’t need to,” Emily yells. “I’ll run out, just for a second.”

“What—? No! Emily, that’s a _really_ bad idea—”

“Just a second, I promise.” Emily taps at her keyboard, frowning. She’s so close; just a few more feet. She can feel the beating of the fan’s blades, and at this close proximity, its metallic screeching sounds almost like screaming. But she’s _so close._ Just a few more data points—

She avoids Simon’s grasping hand and runs out into the open, ignoring him when he shouts her name. She gets as close as she can without being blown backward by the force of the wind, and points her recorder in the direction of the fan’s near-unbearable screeching, wincing as various objects slice through the air around her. Simon calls her name again, sounding closer than he was a moment ago, but she’s staring at her laptop screen, watching as the numbers finally start coming in—

And something hits her leg, a few inches below her hip, missing the Black Rock armor and cutting into her thigh. She doubles over at the sudden burst of pain. Someone dashes in to stand in front of her, and she hears the clang of the edge of a metal shield hitting the ground.

Simon drops to his knees and maneuvers her awkwardly so that her entire body is covered by his shield. As various office objects bounce off the shield, his fingers search out the wound on her thigh, which is weeping blood, and he looks up to glare at her—but she’s got her laptop in front of her again, and the readings are coming in, and she feels a small burst of satisfaction that, combined with the adrenaline, serve to distract her for the moment from her wound.

“You got what you need?” Simon asks, glancing at her laptop. She snaps her laptop shut and nods, looking up at him—and she notices then that a chunk of his helmet is missing, and that he has a fresh cut where his forehead is exposed—did he get that just now? 

But before she can ask, he’s helping her to her feet. With one arm keeping the shield between them and the Item, Simon uses his other arm to guide her back towards the safe zone.

“Better get you back,” he mutters. “So that Jesse can kill us.”

\---

“How’s the cut?” Simon asks an hour or so later, while Emily is sitting on a table, laptop pulled close, thigh freshly bandaged.

She looks up at his guarded face. She’d sent her new data to her research specialists immediately after Simon half-carried, half-dragged her back to the safe zone, and they were able to formulate a plan fairly quickly and relay it to Jesse. At the moment, Jesse and Albert’s team are out, putting the plan to action—leaving a harried-looking Simon to coordinate the safe zone goings-on. 

He looks even more bedraggled than he did an hour ago. He still has most of his armor on, but his helmet is gone, and his hair sticks out in all directions; the cut on his forehead still trickles blood (probably because he’s always frowning); and a bruise on his cheek, barely visible before, is now an alarming shade of purple. 

He shifts uncomfortably at her silent scrutiny. She blinks, looks back down at her screen.

“It’s fine,” she says. “Thanks again for taking me out there.”

“I—” He stutters, the tips of his ears turning red. She looks up at him again, curious.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says, bending his neck to stare at the tops of his shoes. “For letting you get hurt.”

“It wasn’t your fault. I ran out there when you told me not to,” Emily insists, waving a hand. “Besides, I’ve had—”

“Worse spills?” He smiles at his shoes—a half-crooked, tired thing. He glances up at her for a moment.

It’s probably the first time he’s smiled at her.

“Yeah,” she says, unable to keep from smiling back. “Something like that.”

“Look, I just got word from Jesse,” he says, face turning serious as he swipes at the blood trickling from his forehead. “They’ve contained the Item. I’m going to need to get back out into the Panopticon, to help secure the Item. Are you going to be okay on your own?”

“Oh, yeah. Don’t worry about me,” Emily says. “I’ll be fine.”

“All right.” He looks at her for a moment with closed-off eyes, before turning and jogging away, barking orders.

“Sampson, Ramirez, and you five, I’m going to need you to help with transporting the wounded. The medical wing is still unusable right now, so you’re going to have to head to the temporary med unit set up in Executive. Nguyen, Ibrahim, and you three, I need you with me—we’re going to secure the Panopticon chamber…” His voice fades as he approaches the safe zone entrance, and as people begin to get to their feet, stretching and wincing and muttering.

Emily watches as he stops at the entrance, speaking quietly with the small group of men gathered around him; some nod, and they march quickly out into the sector, presumably on their way to the Panopticon. 

It occurs to Emily as she watches him leave that he’s already quite different from the person she’d met in the elevator, only a little over a month ago. He isn’t Salvador, obviously, but he’s every bit the Head of Security—carrying himself with a bit more ease, making decisions and giving orders with a bit more confidence. In the heat of the Altered Item situation, he’d seemed to forget to be nervous or unsure. The capacity to lead, the instinct to do what was needed, had come to him naturally.

Emily grins to herself. 

It’s a good look on him.

\---

After the Altered Item situation quiets down, flowers continue appearing outside Emily’s office door, showing up once (sometimes twice) a week. The variety is admirable. Sometimes it’s a common flower, like tulips or seasonal wildflowers or delicate strawflowers; other times, it’s a rarer bloom, like a cluster of hellebores, a vase of elegant camellias, an otherworldly orchid, a single lotus flower floating in a small stone bowl.

Some might think it strange, or childish, or downright creepy. But Emily thinks it’s absolutely charming. And, like the researcher she is, she takes it upon herself to research every flower that appears outside her door, and spends her spare change printing out photos and informational blurbs to tape to her door for passerby to read.

One day, after a late lunch, Emily is practically running for her office, brushing crumbs from the corners of her mouth, her mind already on a project she’s working on in the lab, when she rounds a corner and sees Simon standing outside her office, staring at her door.

She screeches to a halt. She hasn’t seen Simon since the Altered Item situation, which was weeks ago. 

He’s in his usual dark blue uniform and tie, his dark hair combed back neatly; his hands are clenched by his sides, as though something on her door is aggravating him. His brow is furrowed as he reads. But he seems engaged. So engaged, in fact, that Emily almost feels bad for startling him.

Almost.

“Simon?” She says after tiptoeing up behind him, and she watches with secret glee as he jumps a foot into the air. His nerves and discomfort are instantly back as he glances uncomfortably at her smiling face before tearing his eyes away.

“Did you put these up?” He mutters, gesturing vaguely at her door.

“Well, I didn’t put the door itself up. But if you’re talking about the photos and the informational bits, then yeah. I put those up.” She’s feeling unnaturally cheeky. She isn’t quite sure why.

“Well, they’re—they’re nice. I didn’t know that—”—he glances at the door—“—that camellia oil was a common ingredient in skincare products.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying them,” she says happily. “How’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in forever.”

He lets out a nervous laugh. “Yeah. It’s been a while, hasn’t it. How’s your, uh, your thigh?”

“Like new. And you?” She cranes her neck slightly to get a better look at his forehead, his cheek. “You look like you’ve healed up nicely, too.”

“Oh, yeah. They were just bruises and scratches.” He shies away from her scrutiny, and she draws back, instantly chastised. Is she being too friendly? 

“Um.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “I—I should get going.”

“Oh.” She takes another step back. “Sure.”

An awkward beat.

“Uh, have a nice day,” he mutters to the floor. And then, like usual, he’s off, jogging for the elevator.

Emily stands there in the hall, watching him leave.

\---

The next morning, instead of driving to work, Emily wakes up much earlier than usual and catches the bus. By the time she gets to work, it’s still incredibly early in the day, and she’s grumpy from skipping breakfast and putting up with public transportation, but dammit, she’s here. 

The researcher in her is no longer satisfied with posting photos and paragraphs on her door. The researcher wants to know who is leaving the flowers. The researcher wants to know _why._

She sneaks up to her office, taking the stairs and avoiding the more crowded hallways, trying to make sure that as few people see her as possible. Once she reaches her door and sees that there aren’t any flowers, she checks both sides of the hallway before hurrying into her office. 

She gropes about for her desk and drops her bag under it, like usual; then, with the lights still off, she crouches down by her door, her ear pressed to the wood, and waits.

Nothing happens that morning. After the clock in her office chimes 8am (her usual arrival time), she sighs, gets to her feet, dusts off her knees, and heads down to the cafeteria for breakfast.

For the next few mornings, she does the same, to no avail. But one morning, she manages to make some progress.

She’s in her office, forehead pressed against cold marble, ear pressed against the door, half-asleep. And then she hears—something. She lifts her forehead an inch off the ground, instantly awake, listening intently.

There it is again. A shuffling sound. Footsteps, growing closer.

She holds her breath.

The sound stops. Through the crack between the door and the ground, she sees the shadow of someone hovering indecisively.

After a pause, she hears some muffled fumbling, then the quiet crinkle of plastic as something hits the ground. The rumble of someone cursing under their breath, followed by more crinkling. And then, whomever it is abruptly shuffles off in a hurry.

Emily opens her door as quietly as possible, pauses for a moment to appreciate the bunch of pale violet foxgloves lying by her door, and sneaks off in the direction the footsteps had gone. She flattens herself against the wall and peeks around a corner, and sees someone slip into the stairwell.

She yanks herself back out of view and stands there, heart pounding.

He was wearing a dark uniform, but the entire fucking FBC wears dark uniforms. And there are so many guys she works with who have short dark hair and medium-tall-ish build; in fact, that description probably applies to every other FBC staff member. She nearly stamps her foot in frustration. Which one of them is it? 

She sighs, before turning and heading back to her office. Well, she thinks as she swipes the foxgloves up from the ground and pushes her door open, at least she has a bit more information to work with. A man, with medium-tall-ish build and short dark hair and a dark uniform, has been leaving her flowers.

_A man has been leaving her flowers._ She’d thought it was a possibility, but the confirmation that it is, indeed, a man—a secret admirer?—makes her stomach flutter. She isn’t normally the girl in the room that all the men are drawn to, and she has a tendency to scoff at romantic gestures, cheesy overtures, candlelit dinners. But she’s always had a soft spot for flowers, and this attention is...pleasantly unexpected. Sweet. Nice.

At this point, her office ceiling is a patchwork of flowers hanging upside-down, in various stages of dryness. She removes the previous week’s wildflowers from their vase, and drops the foxgloves into the vase. She decides on a whim to press the wildflowers, and, opening an old physics textbook, carefully arranges the wildflowers somewhere among the appendices. She closes the textbook, stacks it under a few other books just to be safe, and sits at her desk for a moment, preparing to head down to the cafeteria for breakfast. 

Short dark hair, medium-tall-ish build, and a dark uniform. For a moment, she entertains the possibility that her secret admirer is Simon. 

Her face flushes crimson, and she immediately banishes the possibility. The image of him scowling at the flower selection in some grocery store or trying to articulate his needs to a florist, and then carrying a bouquet of delicate strawflowers or a stone bowl with a lotus bloom in those large hands and sneaking around the FBC in the early hours of the morning, is certainly entertaining, but there’s no way. There’s _no way._ It’s got to be someone else.

She swivels back and forth in her chair thoughtfully for a beat. Sighs. Heaves herself to her feet and heads off to the cafeteria.

\---

She continues staking out her office for a few more days, arriving at the crack of dawn and waiting in the darkness by her door. 

Then, one day, she comes in, only to find flowers already waiting for her.

She almost kicks the flowers down the hall in her frustration, before realizing that the flowers are, in fact, ranunculus blooms, which are incredibly difficult to find this time of year. So she settles for standing still and fuming silently. 

Whomever has been leaving the flowers must have figured out that she was staking out her office. How? Has he been watching her? Or was he just trying to be unpredictable?

_Well,_ she resolves, carefully picking up the ranunculus bouquet. If that’s the way he wants to play, she’ll just have to up the ante.

\---

The next morning, she arrives with a much larger bag than usual. Upon arriving at her office, she closes her door securely and pulls a laundry sack of spare clothes from her bag, which she stuffs as far into her closet as it will go. A towel, toothbrush, and toiletry bag follow the clothes. She has to give the closet door a few good shoves to get it to close, but close it finally does.

Next, she drags her futon from the back of her office to the front, as close to her door as possible. She pushes it until it hits the wall with a dull _thunk._

She steps back with a sigh. _Okay_. She has enough supplies to last her a week at the office. Judging from the frequency of the appearance of the bouquets, something should appear within that time.

Is she being obsessive? Most definitely. Irrational? Very likely. Crazy? She shrugs to herself, uncaring. Unless her secret admirer figures out her plan, he'll be around again soon.

And when he does, she’ll be ready.

\---

She’s five nights in. Her back is really beginning to pay the price for the consecutive nights spent on her futon, and the water pressure of the Research sector shower is really quite pathetic… But her determination has not wavered. 

She wriggles around on the futon, trying to find a tolerably comfortable position. Slings her leg over the back of the futon, which seems to help. Then, she pulls her overcoat over her body, wriggles just a bit more, turns her head to the side, and drifts off to sleep.

The next thing she knows, she’s jerking awake in the darkness of her office, at something like four in the morning. She sits up, her overcoat sliding to the ground, instantly alert. 

Something woke her. A sound—?

Without waiting a moment longer, she rolls over and drops onto the ground, rushes to the door in a tangle of limbs, and throws the door open, nearly blowing Simon Arish off his feet.

He freezes immediately, mid-squat, a pot of truly lovely ballerina orchids in hand. She freezes as well, wild-eyed, both hands braced against the door frame.

They stare at each other for a long moment, unmoving. A slow flush creeps its way over his face, spreading well beyond just the tips of his ears. Emily's sure her face is burning up as well.

He breaks the stillness first, glancing down at the orchids. She follows his gaze.

He drops the pot onto the ground. Stumbles a step forward before catching himself.

And he _books_ it down the hall towards the stairs.

She feels a flash of irrational fury well up in her chest as she watches him run.

“Oh no you don’t!” She roars, and she tears after him, almost stepping on the orchids in her mad dash. 

He makes it just around the corner before she catches up to him. In a blur of sleep-deprived rage, she launches herself across the remaining distance, tackling him, and they go down like a sack of bricks. 

Her knees hit the ground with unexpected force, and a burst of pain blooms up her legs. He struggles for a moment, writhing furiously, but she hangs on with all her might, her heels hooked around his thighs, one hand gripping his collar and the other scrabbling at the front of his shirt.

After a beat of writhing, clinging, and grunting, Simon finally lies still. Emily, unsure of whether he's really given up, lies on top of him for another moment, holding her breath; but he hides his face against the floor, silent and bright red and defeated. 

She struggles to her feet, breathing a shaky sigh as she brushes off her pants and sleeves and runs her fingers self-consciously through her hair.

He rolls over slowly onto his side, wincing; he'd taken most of the impact when they fell. Emily, feeling a stab of remorse for tackling him, offers him a hand.

He pushes himself into a sitting position; he hides his face from her as best he can, his brow heavily furrowed. He seems to consider her hand for a moment, before taking it and allowing himself to be helped to his feet.

His hand is slick with sweat. She glances away guiltily.

“My office,” she says, her voice surprisingly steady. She gestures towards her office, just in case either one of them had forgotten its location, before marching off.

She hesitates awkwardly at the corner and sneaks a glance back at Simon, who's still standing where she left him, shuffling his feet and looking utterly embarrassed and anxious and forlorn, as though he’s expecting to get fired. He has that hunched posture, his thick brow scrunched up in a grimace; his uniform, normally neatly pressed and tucked, is disheveled and smudged in certain areas with dust, and his hair is a mess. He looks away, makes an attempt at brushing most of the dust off—and then he just stands there, rubbing the back of one hand with the other, avoiding her eyes. His face is still bright red. Every drop of Head of Security confidence and bravado seems to have abandoned him.

He looks adorable. He also looks abjectly miserable. Emily finds it immensely confusing.

She wonders what expression she's making; she tries to relax the muscles of her face. 

“Please,” she tries. “I just want to talk.”

He glances up at her, looking conflicted and utterly defeated. Just as she begins to wonder if he's going to make another break for it, he shuffles forward. She turns and walks toward her office, and he trails along behind her, as though he's walking to his doom.

\---

The butterfly orchids have replaced the faded ranunculus on her desk, and the ranunculus lie across her laptop, waiting to be hung from the ceiling. Simon, unsure if he's allowed to sit, stands pressed between her desk and the guest chair, watching Emily without really looking at her. His face has lost most of its flush; he seems more resigned than embarrassed. And Emily paces silently between him and her futon, silent, rubbing at her face with her hands.

She'd wanted to talk. She still wants to talk. But now that he's standing here in her office, she doesn't know what to say. 

Simon glances up at the flowers affixed to the ceiling.

“That's kind of cool,” he ventures, and immediately feels lame.

She stops pacing long enough to cast him a distracted look. “Thanks. I'm drying them.”

“Oh. What for?”

“Are you messing with me?” She explodes, rounding on him suddenly. “Is that what this has all been?”

“W—What—” He sputters.

“Why?” She demands. “Have I done something to offend you?”

“No!” He insists. “I'm not trying to mess with you, I swear.”

“Then _why?_ Why the flowers, the avoiding? The—the glaring?”

Whatever blood had cycled back into his body immediately rushes back to his face.

“I… I know my behavior has been...confusing. But I promise, I'm not messing with you. I'm not upset with you or anything. In fact—”

He snaps his mouth shut, a brief flash of panic lighting up his eyes.

“‘In fact’?” She prompts. 

He looks away, his jaw working furiously.

She tries changing the topic. “How did you know that I like flowers?”

“I found your Facebook account,” he mumbles, still looking away. “I saw your photos, and I hazarded a guess.”

“Okay,” she says slowly. “But what does it all _mean?_ ”

He looks down at the tops of his shoes, and sighs to himself. He feels worn down to the bone, and he knows he isn't going to get out of this situation until he tells her the truth.

“It…”

“Yes?”

He shifts uncomfortably. “It means…”

She's practically vibrating. “ _Yes?_ ”

“It means I think...that you're beautiful.”

He immediately deflates, and waits for the inevitable.

The silence in the room becomes deafening.

“But—” She stutters. Simon glances quickly up at her, afraid of what he'll see. Emily looks like she's stumped on a paraphysics problem. It's not quite the reaction he was afraid of, but it's also not a reaction he expected.

“But why the scowling and avoiding, then?” She asks, her voice slightly subdued.

He fidgets, looking embarrassed. “I didn't know how to act around you. I still don't, honestly. It was easier to just...maintain distance.”

She frowns, considering his words. It hadn't occurred to her before, but she thinks she can understand.

“I'm sorry,” he mutters. “I overcompensated. I know it must have been confusing.”

She stares at him.

“I'm sorry,” he repeats, his words hardly audible.

“Okay, so let me get this straight,” she says, waving her hands in front of her, after a long silence. The paraphysics problem isn't quite solved yet. “You’ve been leaving flowers at my door for the past—has it been two months at this point?” 

“Uh...yeah. I think so.” 

“Okay. You’ve been leaving flowers at my door for the past two months, including orchids—which are my fucking favorite, by the way—”

—she gestures angrily, which startles him—

“—and you've been avoiding me, but you were also such a sweetheart during the Altered Item emergency—all of those flowers must have cost a fortune, oh my god—”

—she decides not to think about that for now—

“—Anyway, you’ve been doing all of that because...you think I’m... _beautiful_ _?_ ”

The last word is softly reverent, disbelieving. No one has ever called her beautiful. Truthfully, it's not a word she associates with herself. The feeling that it now invokes in her stomach, her chest, is indescribable. Exhilarating. Terrifying.

Simon, meanwhile, looks ready to melt through the ground. He opens his mouth, trying to formulate a way of gathering up the remaining shreds of his dignity and beating a hasty retreat. He looks like he’s given up.

Emily takes a deep breath and purses her lips. She crosses over to him in one wide step and peers up at his face, zeroing in on his mouth, and he watches, half in horror, half in awe, as her sky blue eyes flutter closed, and as she leans up and plants a gentle kiss on his bottom lip.

He goes deathly still.

She pulls back to gauge his reaction. He stands there with his hands hanging at his sides, staring dumbly at her, his delicious-looking mouth slightly ajar; his brown eyes, normally hooded and veiled, are blown wide. 

The silence grows. She wonders if she somehow misread the situation.

“Why did you do that?” He asks quietly, his breath huffing through his nose.

“I think you're beautiful too,” she admits. He stares at her some more, and she wonders if that was the wrong thing to say. But then, he shuffles a step forward, his gaze softening as it flickers uncertainly between her mouth and her eyes.

She closes her fingers around his tie, her knuckles bumping against his chest. She leans up, muttering an abashed “thank you” against his chin before going in for another kiss; her stomach flutters when he returns the kiss without hesitation. She nibbles experimentally on his generous bottom lip, and he really does melt then, planting one of his hands insistently at the small of her back…

And that was that.

\---

“Hey, Jesse?”

Jesse blinks up from the file she's currently struggling to concentrate on, and is mildly surprised to see her Head of Security standing in the doorway of her office.

“Simon,” she calls across the cavernous room, waving her hand. “Come in.”

“Um,” Simon says, suddenly nervous as he nears her desk. “I just wanted to let you know that Emily—Emily Pope and I are—” 

He breaks off.

“Dating?” Jesse offers.

For a moment, the look on Simon's face is priceless. 

“Yeah,” he replies, rubbing the back of his neck. “We're dating.”

“Congrats,” Jesse says, nonplussed. “Make sure you let HR know.”

“Yep. Yeah. Emily's talking to someone from HR right now.”

“Good. That all?”

“Uh, yeah. That's all.”

She grins at him. “I'll see you around, then.”

When Simon leaves, closing the door behind him, she rolls her eyes.

_Finally. Now, about this report..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably did both Simon and Emily wrong, but they are adorable idiots in my head and that is how I am going to imagine them until I die (or maybe until I finish the game). <3


	2. coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simon tries repeatedly to ask Emily out on a coffee date. Emily isn't sure about him at first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Tags:**
> 
>   * Fluff
>   * Angst
>   * Mild violence
>   * Simon is persistent
>   * Simon also likes to read??
> 


1.

When Emily first meets Simon, it’s during the Hiss invasion, outside the Boardroom. She’s yanked out of her deep focus by the sound of the Central Executive main door opening, and she rushes to the door of the Boardroom. Hiss-infected agents, the new Director, an escaped Altered Item, or something entirely new—at this point, it really could be anything.

Instead, it’s a group of security personnel with HRAs strapped across their chests, loaded down with equipment, looking half dead on their feet.

The other agents in the room, relieved to see colleagues who don’t float limply in the air or glow an ominous red, hurry forward to help the newly-arrived bring their equipment into the room. As Emily watches, one group breaks off immediately to set up a security checkpoint at the main door, and another group to set up a long, standing-height table at the foot of the Boardroom steps.

One of the men who approach the Boardroom has a patch on his sleeve, which Emily is better able to make out as he draws nearer. Security Chief of Maintenance. So they made it—at least, some of them.

She continues watching the chief for a moment. His neatly-cut hair is visibly damp with sweat, and he has those baggy, high-waisted pants and generously supportive grandpa shoes that security personnel seem to prefer. His complexion is pallid and his eyes are clouded over with fatigue, and his uniform is wrinkled and stained with what looks like days-old blood, but despite that, he moves about nimbly, helping the other men with setting up the table and lugging over cases of papers and binders, maps, rolls of film, containers of pens, bottles of water. A young man in an older man’s clothes, forced into an older man’s job.

She begins walking down the steps, and he looks up at her approach. His eyes widen for a moment, as though she’s the last thing he’d expected to see.

“I’m Pope,” Emily says, offering a hand and a smile. “Emily Pope. Research Specialist. I assume Jesse sent you our way?”

“Sure did. It’s nice to see someone who isn’t Security or Hiss,” he grins, clasping her hand. “I’m Simon Arish, Chief of Security over in Maintenance.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Arish.”

“Same here. Hey, do you know if there’s any coffee here in Exec? Maintenance ran out a week ago, and I could really use some right now.”

“Sure. The break room is down that hall there, to the right.”

“Thanks—w-hang on.” Simon stops mid-turn. “Did you say Emily?”

“Emily Pope, yes.” 

“Oh.” He cocks his head, staring at her with an expression she can’t quite decipher.

“Is something wrong?” She asks.

“No, it’s just—I saw your boss the day he disappeared.”

“Darling? Where?”

“Down at the NSC Power Plant. He was handing out personal HRAs, and talking about how he had one large-scale HRA that he was reserving for a different purpose… He also mentioned you by name.”

“Me?” Emily scoffs. “Seems unlikely.”

“No, he definitely mentioned you,” Simon insists, frowning at the ground. “What was it he said?”

Emily stands there, conflicted. On one hand, she’s incredibly curious; on the other hand, whatever Darling had to say behind her back couldn’t have been constructive.

“He was drunk, and half-naked,” Simon mumbles. “He was saying a bunch of things… God, I know he mentioned your name. Emily Pope. Emily Pope…”

Drunk? Half-naked? Emily doesn’t know whether to feel incredulous or amused. Or frightened.

“Ah!” Simon perks up. “I remember. He said he ‘should have told you more.’ Whatever that means.”

Emily goes still. Simon stills as well, sensing a reaction from her that he hadn’t expected.

And then, she feels her anger well up to the surface.

“Well I’m glad he realized in the end,” she spits bitterly before she can stop herself. “Fucking Darling, always assuming he has to do everything on his own. Why the fuck did he even hire me in the first place?” 

Simon’s expression is fully serious as he watches her take several deep breaths.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles, turning away partially. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Hey, I get it,” Simon says gently. “If you need to let it out, let it out. Don’t mind me.”

Emily shakes her head. “Thanks, but there’s no time. Gotta keep looking for ways to defeat the Hiss. I still have to look into Hedron, Polaris, P6…” She trails off distractedly; he doesn’t bother asking her to clarify.

“Well, once this is over,” he says, offering a crooked smile, “if we both make it through this shitshow, we could hang out. Maybe get coffee.”

She blinks at him, completely blindsided.

“Only if you’re interested,” he hurries to add, suddenly abashed, as though he’s just realized what he said. He begins backpedaling quickly. “Sorry. Tired, you know, still need coffee…” 

He turns and makes a beeline for—

“Arish,” Emily calls, taking a step forward, mouth twitching in spite of herself.

He turns and eyes her warily.

“Break room’s that way,” she says, pointing in the direction she'd indicated before.

“Right. Thanks. Just gonna…” Simon mutters as he changes course and hurries out of sight, practically jogging at this point. Emily ducks her head to hide her grin as she retreats into the Boardroom.

* * *

2.

“Hey. You need a ride?”

The sound of Simon’s voice snaps her out of her gloom. It’s the end of a Tuesday, the pouring rain is of biblical proportions, and her umbrella is in her car, which is in the shop—which means she has to stand on the unsheltered corner of a crowded street and wait for a public bus, sans umbrella. The bag she's been holding over her head is soaked through. She turns, blinking rain out of her eyes, and is greeted with the sight of the Head of Security standing a distance away, in a raincoat, holding a battered umbrella over his head.

“What?” Emily yells over the sound of rain, unsure if she heard him correctly.

“I asked if you need a ride?” Simon replies, taking a hesitant step forward. “No one should have to wait for the bus in this weather.”

Since the Hiss was purged from Dylan, and since the FBC started on its uphill climb of purging the Hiss entirely from the House and repairing the extensive infrastructural damage, Emily has seen a whole heck of a lot of Simon—but only in a purely professional context. So far, he’s made no mention of getting coffee together, and he’s probably looked her in the eye a total of two times.

Which has given her plenty of opportunity to observe him without his knowledge. 

For instance, she knows that he gets incredibly nervous at the Head meetings that Jesse schedules on a semi-regular basis (he wipes his hands surreptitiously on his pants whenever he’s nervous); that unless someone invites him to lunch, which doesn’t seem to happen often, he’ll usually try to squeeze by with a vending machine granola bar and a coffee; and that he has a specific grimace that he reserves for whenever he catches a glimpse of his own photo on the wall of the security center. 

Not used to being a Head, to the respect, the responsibility. Still accidentally comes to work in his Chief clothes, some days; still noticeably more comfortable and more liberal with his jokes around Maintenance security personnel. Humble to a fault. 

Sweet. 

Kind of cute.

And now he’s standing here, shuffling his boots on the rain-drenched cement, offering her a ride. 

He must see her discomfort, because he backs down immediately.

“Uh, nevermind. I—” He breaks off awkwardly, backpedaling. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He turns to head to the FBC garage.

“Wait!” Emily calls, stuttering a few steps after him, before she realizes what she’s doing. Simon stops in his tracks, turns to peer at her.

Dammit, why did she open her mouth!? She stands there, staring at him stubbornly, unsure of how exactly to proceed.

“I have a date,” she blurts.

_Oh no._

“Um, at a restaurant. A first date. With a...librarian? It’s over in Queens.” _Oh god oh god oh god._

“Oh, I know Queens like the back of my hand,” Simon replies, his face instantly lighting up. “That wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Okaythanks,” Emily squeaks, hop-skipping over puddles as she hurries to catch up to Simon.

“Which restaurant is it?” He asks as they begin walking toward the garage.

She panics as she tries to recall the name of a restaurant—any restaurant—near her place. She thinks of a dumpling place in Flushing that she’s been meaning to try.

“Er, I don't remember the name. But I know where it is. Once we get to Queens, I’ll direct you,” she says, flashing him a nervous smile. _Oh, good. That was_ very _natural._ To his credit, Simon seemingly takes no notice of her strange behavior.

She pauses when she sees his car. It’s some kind of Toyota—and it’s visibly ancient.

“I know it isn’t much to look at,” Simon says, patting his car a tad affectionately, “but it’s been with me through some tough times.”

“I wasn’t judging your car,” Emily hurries to amend. “It’s—got character.”

He snickers.

“I’m serious!” Oh god, now he thinks she’s judging his car. “I mean, I don’t know cars, but I can tell that you’ve really tried to keep this for as long as you can. Like an old piano. Or a blanket you’ve had for ages. You know it’s on its last legs, but you just can’t…”

“Let it go.” He smiles at her as though she’s mentioned a mutual friend. “Yeah, that’s exactly how it is.”

He unlocks the car doors, and she tries in vain to shake most of the rainwater from her clothing before clambering into the passenger’s seat. The interior is faded but clean; high notes of a scented cleaning product intermingle with a faint undercurrent of coffee.

“I’m drenched through,” she says ruefully as she tries to make herself as small as possible.

“It’s all right.” He turns on the engine. “The seats are cloth. They’ve been through worse.”

“So,” she ventures as he threads his car expertly through the garage, “what’s the story with this car?” She mostly feels guilty about lying to him about the date, and then unintentionally shading his car. But she’s also genuinely curious.

“It’s my sister’s old ride.” He raps the dash gently. “She gave it to me when I graduated high school.”

He pulls into traffic, and the rain lashes at the windshield with a sudden force. He goes quiet.

“What’s her name?” Emily asks gently.

“Noura.” He pauses. “Our parents died in a car crash, back when I was a freshman in high school. Noura was a sophomore in college. She dropped out to see me through high school.”

“She sounds amazing.” Emily has a sudden hollow feeling in her chest.

“Yeah. It was a hard time, much more for her than for me. But she went back, got her degree in forensic science. Has a husband now, a guy who’s good to her. And a little girl, Lilian.”

Emily pictures a little girl with big eyes and Simon’s dark wavy hair.

“What about you?” He asks. 

“What?”

“Family. Any siblings? Parents?”

“Oh, yeah.” Emily scoffs. “My parents are alive and kicking. And my siblings—I have a lot of them. I’m the youngest.”

“Yeah?” The corners of his eyes crinkle. “Tell me about them.”

Emily hums, frowning. “My mom is one of those helicopter mom types. When I finally got home after the lockdown was lifted, I had eighty-four messages from her alone.”

“Jesus,” he laughs. “She knows that this is a contingency of the job, right?”

“I’ve tried to explain it to her. I really have.”

“And your dad? Your siblings?”

“My dad just lets my mom do all the heavy lifting. He’s always been super chill. And my siblings…” She squirms without meaning to.

“Sorry,” Simon says. “We don’t have to talk about your family.”

“Oh, no, it’s okay. I don’t mind. It’s just… I’m not used to talking about them. They’ve all got families, jobs. Normal lives, you know. I guess I'm not usually...in the picture.”

He glances at her from the corner of his eye.

“Well, we’re in Queens,” he announces a beat later. “How should I be getting to the restaurant?”

“The restaurant—? Oh. Um.” She cranes her neck to peer through the windows and get her bearings. “You’ll want to take the second right, up there at the stoplight.”

Simon is a cautious driver, which is a truly rare trait in this part of New York. She guides him off Main Street and into a microscopic parking lot with questionable pavement, and he punches his hazard lights. He turns to her with a smile that’s gone from genuine to guarded, and it makes her stomach twist up unexpectedly.

“Um,” she mumbles, gathering up her bag and peering at the restaurant. It’s a real hole-in-the-wall, with mismatched chairs and permanently-stained vinyl flooring. It looks like the perfect place to wait out the rain. But for some reason, she suddenly doesn’t feel much like leaving Simon’s car.

“Good luck on your date,” he says, as if on cue. “And hey, if you need an emergency extraction, let me know; I live close by.” 

She pictures Simon ramming his decade-old Toyota into the restaurant and yelling at her to “get in, get in!” and she can’t help but laugh, which seems to surprise him.

“And if it goes horribly,” he continues casually, “you could tell me all about it sometime. Over coffee?”

She stops laughing. Her face is frozen in a grin for a moment, and they stare at each other. She hadn’t expected him to ask her out again on a coffee date. 

_Date?_ If she got coffee with Simon, would that be...a _date?_

She fumbles for the handle and all but jumps out of his car. Then, feeling awfully rude and conflicted, she bends down awkwardly and smiles at his knee.

“Thank you for the lift, Arish. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She stands under the shelter of the restaurant entrance and watches as he pulls out of the parking lot. Then, she walks into the restaurant, places an order of pork-and-chive dumplings, and sits by the window, picturing Simon attempting to entertain his niece, as she watches the rain thin out. 

* * *

3.

It’s moments like these that make Emily almost— _almost_ —wish that the Hiss invasion is still an active emergency. When the enemy was an extra-dimensional being bent on the destruction of the Bureau, it was easy to come together and work as a team. 

But now, with the Hiss gone, the Bureau seems to be returning to old habits. Old rifts. 

“This is unacceptable,” she grits out. She’s having a late lunch meeting with Simon in the cafeteria, and the presence of food helps to ease the tension—but not by much. “Extending the time allowed for Security to review our plans for experiments and interdepartmental transports could delay extremely time-sensitive projects. I get that you want Research to be more accountable, and believe me, I do too. But things aren’t always this simple.”

“Look,” he says, visibly frustrated, “I don’t want to tell your department how to do your jobs, but I also don’t want my department to be left out of these decisions. And the current protocol gives us barely enough time to read through your submissions, much less make security plans out of them. Just because my guys are on a lower paygrade doesn’t mean we should just rush to accommodate lab coats who parade around the FBC with highly dangerous paranatural substances.”

Emily is taken aback. “That’s not what I was trying to say.”

He’s already running a hand over his face. “I know. That wasn’t fair. I’m sorry.”

“But you’re right. Research has a history of bulldozing over Security. I’m sorry about that. But these timelines—Arish, they’re not going to work.”

He looks down at his notebook for a moment. “Well,” he says slowly, “what do you think of adding some conditions then? You said things aren’t always so simple. Maybe we could stick to this protocol in cases where things are pretty straightforward, and work out an expedited plan for when things need to be done in a hurry?”

“Mm. In cases where we need something to be done quickly, I could just talk to you directly. Or our deputies could talk to each other. We’ll still go through all of the checkpoints on your list, but maybe doing it verbally, in one go, could expedite things.”

“That could work,” Simon says, smiling tentatively now. “We could also bump the priority of your urgent requests, to make sure that we get our planning done fast enough to accommodate your timelines. As best we can, anyway.”

“All right.” She shifts in her seat as she jots down a note. “I’ll get our protocols updated. But—there are still going to be situations where we need to move immediately. I mean, we work at the FBC. Things don’t exactly go as planned here.”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “I get that. I guess when something like that happens, just give us a call. We’ll have to be flexible and figure it out from there.”

Emily grimaces. In emergency situations, it was common for Darling to forget not only about Security, but every other department—sometimes even his own department. Perhaps just making a call to Security would make a huge difference. 

“Agreed.” Emily sighs. “Well, thanks for talking to me about this. I know we’ve got a lot more work still, but I think this is a good start.”

He mumbles something that sounds benign and stuffs his mouth with food. Emily regards him for a moment. After he’d given her a lift to the restaurant, they’d gone back to interacting on a purely professional basis; he’d made no mention of her “date,” nor had he mentioned getting coffee. He’d also gone back to avoiding her eyes.

“So,” she says hesitantly, looking down at her own salad, “what, uh… How are things?”

He looks up at her, mouth full of beef and potato.

“Oh! Sorry. Take your time.” She pokes awkwardly at chunks of chicken and ribbony bits of lettuce as he struggles to clear his mouth.

“Things are all right, I guess,” he replies, offering a lopsided grin. “The main hurdle Security is facing now is rebuilding our roster. We lost a lot of folks to the Hiss, so we’re severely understaffed. But hiring for security posts at the FBC is...well, you know.”

“Yeah.” She imagines trying to explain the dangers inherent to the FBC to a security new hire. “How about Noura? And Lilian? How are they?”

“They’re good,” Simon replies, looking a little surprised. “I visited the other weekend. We drove out to a park upstate.”

“That sounds nice,” Emily says, suddenly wistful.

“How about you? How did the date go? With the librarian?”

“Oh.” She tries to keep from grimacing. “Terribly. It went terribly. I never saw the guy again.”

“Sounds serious.” He shoots her a conspiratorial grin, which makes her wonder if he ever bought that date story, before his face goes mock-serious. “What went wrong?”

“Well, you know.” Emily flaps her hand dramatically. “I couldn’t figure out how to talk to the guy. We couldn’t agree on anything.”

“That so,” Simon says, still serious. “Well, after the way our meeting just went, I think we can safely say that the problem was with the librarian.”

Emily lets out some sort of half-surprised, half-embarrassed guffaw. She feels her face burning up, and turns away, taking a bite of salad to avoid having to reply. Simon takes another bite of his food as well, suddenly looking a little green.

She thinks she can feel the mention of coffee hanging in the air, and hurriedly stuffs the rest of her salad in her mouth, grasping desperately for something to say as she chews. Would it be presumptuous to accept a coffee date if he hasn’t specifically renewed the offer?

She swallows the half-chewed mass of salad with some difficulty and stands up, gathering up her lunch container and clipboard.

“There’s, uh, something you should know,” she stammers; Simon looks up at her with a pained expression.

“I don’t drink coffee,” she confides.

She turns and leaves before she can see his reaction.

* * *

4.

Emily can’t remember what she’d set out to do; she can’t remember where she is now. All she knows is that she feels suffocated. Flat. There’s a part of her that’s missing—but it’s difficult to articulate...

Her thoughts wander. There was someone else with her. A research aide. Kaufmann? She’d also had a notebook, some instruments. She’d gone in somewhere to take measurements, to make observations. It hadn’t gone as planned.

She squints about her, except she doesn’t have eyelids, or maybe even eyes.

Where _is_ she?

And then she feels an indescribable sensation. Not really pleasant or unpleasant, but novel. Like air being sucked out of the room, and air being pumped into the room at the same time. Like she’s caught between two realities, two threads. Fast-unspooling threads.

And then she feels as though her chest is being inflated by an alien force, and then her limbs, and finally her head. It’s excruciating, and then it feels astoundingly normal. She’s distantly aware of flying through the air and landing on something that grunts.

The voice that grunted is calling her name. She recognizes the voice. 

“Pope? Pope, can you hear me?”

There’s a sensation of being touched. Someone is touching her face, trying to get her to open her eyes. Or maybe her eyes are already open; she isn’t sure.

“I’m gonna get you to the med wing, okay? Just hang in there.”

She searches for the will, the knowledge, to open her eyes. She needs to tell the person that she’s all right.

When she finally does open her eyes, she regrets it immediately; a flash of pain blooms across her temples, and the brightness of the light makes her groan.

“Just hang on. Can you hear me, Emily? Just hang in on.”

_Simon._ How did she end up here? Is he carrying her? Where are they going…?

And then she remembers, in bits and pieces. The AWE, the new Altered Item. The wing in the FBC that had been reserved for it. They didn’t know what exactly the Item had done to the people it had disappeared… And so she’d gone into the chamber, with Kaufmann, to take additional readings, hoping to find a way to restore the missing people.

And then she’d become a missing person herself.

“Simon?” She croaks; she sounds like her mouth is stuffed with cotton.

“Yeah, I’m here.” He’s running down a hall; lights pass rapidly overhead, and the jolting of his pounding footsteps is painful. “I’m here. Please, don’t close your eyes.”

He kicks a door open and yells “I need a medic!” Hurried voices tell Simon where to take Emily, where to set her down.

“Simon,” she tries to say; he appears next to her, a dark blur in her reeling vision. “The readings—did they come through?”

“Jesus, Emily,” he exclaims quietly. “You nearly suffocated to death in a 2D alternate dimension, and the first thing you want to talk about is whether your data came through?”

Another flash of pain lances behind her eyes, and she squeezes her eyes shut. “Did they?”

A sigh. “Yes, they did. One of your lab coats was able to analyze the data and adjust the resonance emitters to the correct frequency, which is how we got the mirror to spit you out.”

“What about the others? Kaufmann?”

“I’m not sure. I didn’t see.”

“Simon…”

Another sigh. “All right, I’ll go check.”

She throws out a hand. “Wait.”

“What’s up?”

“Did you…” She frowns. “Did you break my fall? When I came out of the mirror?”

“Oh,” he says, laughing ruefully; his fingers find his upper arm, where she imagines a bruise might be forming. “Yeah. But it wasn’t so bad. You’re not a large human.”

Maybe it’s the disorientation, the pain—she still isn’t quite used to her lungs being three-dimensional again. Maybe it’s just the relief of not being dead. Whatever it is, it gives her the courage to just fuck it and launch herself off the cliff.

She grips his tie and pulls; he stumbles forward, catching himself against the edge of the bed. He opens his mouth, probably to say something sensible.

With what little strength she has left, she presses her mouth to his. 

Simon stays bent over Emily, goggling at her now-unconscious face, for a long time.

\---

After her recovery, the lengths to which Emily goes to avoid Simon are embarrassing. But not, she reasons, as embarrassing as attempting to explain the—the thing that occurred between them.

She remembers more from the incident than she'd like. She remembers the feel of his mouth, the taste of coffee on his breath, the way he'd caught her neck as her head fell back.

God. Why is she such a useless, confusing klutz? None of what she does or says seems to make sense, not even to herself. 

She’s brooding as she walks into the Bureau in the morning, passing mindlessly through the security checkpoint. She pictures Simon with his sister and brother-in-law and adorable little niece, a happy family. She'd never fit into something like that. And the fact that she and Simon happen to be Heads of two sprawling FBC departments—the importance of their jobs, the sheer amount of trust that Jesse places in them on a daily basis—no. Having any romantic interest in another Head is clearly a mistake, one that could potentially place billions of lives in danger.

She rounds a corner and walks straight into Simon.

“Hey,” he says when they stumble apart. They haven't seen each other since the medical wing incident. 

“Uh, hi,” she mumbles, backing away and averting her eyes.

“Look, I know you're going to tell me that you didn't mean—what you did,” he says, before she can retreat any further. “I know you're going to apologize for it, ask me to forget it ever happened. But I just want to let you know that whatever your speed is—tea, ice cream floats, hard liquor—whatever it is, I'd—I'd still like to take you out to get it.”

She panics.

“We can't,” she blurts, still backpedaling. “It wouldn't work out. And our jobs—it would be too complicated. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—I shouldn't have kissed you. I’m sorry.”

She turns and practically sprints away.

* * *

5.

And then the unthinkable happens. The Hiss resurfaces, roiling forward from the depths of the House, severely weakened and cut off from its source but still potent enough to infect FBC agents caught without their HRAs. Jesse immediately seals all House exits and is presumably bouncing from sector to sector, dealing with the resurgence. 

Emily sits curled up in a bunk in the Research sector, thanking whatever gods are listening that Jesse still emits Polaris’s resonance. She looks up when one of her aides approaches.

“I just finished tracking the last known locations for most of our department personnel, and for the management teams of the other departments, like you requested?” The aide says, offering Emily a clipboard. 

Emily accepts the clipboard wordlessly and flips through the pages, skimming the contents. She holds her breath as she arrives at the Security section of the report.

Simon is marked as “Quarry - unconfirmed.”

“We don’t know where Arish is?” Emily asks, frowning up at the aide, who eyes her strangely.

“Not exactly,” the aide replies. “He went into the Quarry to deal with a security breach. He should have returned by now, but security logs indicate he is still somewhere in the Quarry. So we can assume he's still there, but we're not certain.”

“Did he have his HRA?” The personal HRA mandate had been deactivated a few weeks ago, after the last sector-by-sector sweep was completed. 

The aide shakes her head ruefully. “I’m not sure. But given how cumbersome the Quarry suits are…”

Emily’s stomach sinks, and the aide has enough sense to leave her in peace. What if Simon had indeed gone into the Threshold without his HRA? The Hiss had readily penetrated open Thresholds before; even in its current weakened state, Emily can’t discount the possibility that it has re-penetrated the Quarry.

Which means—

She shakes her head rigorously. This is exactly why developing feelings for a coworker is unwise; when she should be focusing on devising a way to end the emergency, she finds her thoughts wandering down entirely irrelevant courses instead.

A loud bang suddenly rings out, on the other side of the bunker door. Emily straightens; the other Research personnel in the bunker go still.

Heavy footsteps clomp closer and closer, and stop outside the bunker door.

“Emily.” His voice sounds like it’s coming from a decade-old video cassette, through an outdated television set—staticky, a bit grungy.

“Arish,” Emily calls, hurrying to the door. “You made it out of the Quarry? What’s going on out there?”

With shaking fingers, she punches the panel on the wall next to the door and scrolls through the list of functions. She selects “SCAN EXTERIOR FOR HISS PRESENCE.”

“Emily, open this door. I need to see you.” He sounds—angry. Frightened. His words sound forced.

Emily frowns. “Simon? Are you all right?”

“Open this door.” There’s a loud metallic clang as he slams something against the door. His voice has gone cold.

The scan completes, and the screen blares “POSITIVE.”

Emily backs away a step, stomach sinking. “I can’t do that, Simon.”

“Please, I can’t take this anymore,” he screams, suddenly. “Help me.”

“Help with what?” Emily asks, confused. Usually, Hiss-infected individuals don’t say anything besides the Hiss incantation; the only exception has been Dylan. What could be causing Simon to diverge from that?

“Please, Emily, let me in,” he pleads, and then: “I can’t—I can’t—hold out anymore. No matter what you do, _don’t_ let me _iiiinnnnn_ —”

Something pounds against the door repeatedly. Is he hitting the door?

The banging stops.

“Simon?” She calls, tentatively.

She’s answered by a flurry of gunshots, ricocheting off the door. Her aides spring up and crowd against the back wall. Emily, however, knows from prior experience that all six sides of the bunker are solidly bulletproof. She stands by the door, mind racing. 

“Simon, listen to me,” Emily yells, even though she has little chance of out-yelling the sound of gunfire. “If you’re still in there, you have to fight it. Simon? Can you hear me?”

She only hears the Hiss incantation, louder now. She’s able to distinguish Simon’s voice, saying the words along with the others, and it’s painful to hear. Another round of gunshots ricochet off the bunker door. Someone behind her begins to cry.

“Simon.” Emily’s screaming now. “Please keep fighting. Look, I—I’ll take you up on that coffee date, okay?”

She winces as another round hits the door. Then, Simon’s voice, surprisingly near. 

“What makes you think I’m still interested?” He snarls, in that off-kilter, malicious way that Dylan used to speak. Emily pulls her hand away from the door as though burned.

“Please,” she starts to say, feeling utterly useless, when she hears the distinctive _blam_ of the Service Weapon, and the sound of bullets piercing armor.

“Wait!” Emily yells, but it’s too late; the sound of gunfire rings out in the Research chamber, and she can’t open the door and endanger the lives of the other Research personnel in the bunker with her. Her hand hovers over the lock mechanism; she listens to the wet, concussive sound of bullets piercing flesh.

“Jesse,” she bawls, nearly frantic, as soon as things quiet down. “They weren’t all gone. Arish was—he was talking to me.”

“I know,” Jesse responds; her boots slap carelessly against the floor as she jogs up to the bunker. “I noticed earlier. I’m trying to only disable them, but fuck, some of them were coming at me hard.”

“I think the infection is weaker, since the Hiss is cut off from its source,” Emily replies. “Maybe you can cleanse them without killing them?”

“Maybe.” Jesse sounds doubtful.

“Is Arish still alive?”

There’s a pause. “I think he is, but it’s ugly.”

“Is it safe for us to come out?”

“No.” There’s a whisper of something outside, reminiscent of Polaris. “Let me try cleansing the ones that are still alive, first.”

Emily holds her breath and listens as, for several long moments, Jesse grunts and mutters curses.

“Okay,” the Director finally says. “You can come out now.”

Emily punches the unlock, and the door rolls open, and Emily finds herself staring down the barrel of the Service Weapon.

“Sorry,” Jesse says after a beat, lowering the firearm. “Had to be sure.”

“It’s all right. But the Hiss—were you able to cleanse them?”

  
  
Jesse winces. “I think so.”

Emily's heart is galloping in her chest. “Arish?”

Jesse points to a body lying in a growing puddle of blood. Emily hurries over; she sees the gunshot wounds in his leg, his abdomen. His limbs aren't broken and stretched, and his hair hasn't fallen out, the way most Hiss-infected manifest; but the sight of his blood is enough to make her heart drop into her stomach.

“Emily,” Jesse says gently. Jesse’s probably figured it out. Emily, not caring, stands there, staring down at Simon. She’d almost lost him. He’d almost died.

“Emily, I need you and the others to help me get these people to the medical wing.” 

Emily takes a deep breath to clear her head, and turns away, nodding.

Jesse turns to the rest of the room and, using her Director's voice, says: “I’ll bounce over to the med wing, get some supplies and medics headed your way. For now, I need you all to do what you can to keep these people alive. Should only be about five minutes until help arrives, okay?” The others in the room nod, looking overwhelmed; Emily stays numbly silent.

After Jesse leaves, the aide who’d given Emily the personnel location report appears beside her with a sympathetic expression.

“You look after Arish,” she whispers in Emily’s ear. “We’ll handle the rest.”

Emily nods shortly. As the aide hurries off to help a nauseous-looking senior scientist with an unconscious ranger, Emily kneels by Simon, grabs a handful of his tattered shirt, and presses it to the wound in his stomach.

“I’m here,” she whispers. He doesn’t respond.

\---

Emily visits Simon every day in the medical wing, and then at the public hospital when he's transferred there along with the agents Jesse managed to cleanse. Simon and the others had, like Dylan, entered into a coma after being cleansed, and no one has any idea if they will ever wake up.

One day, Emily steps into his hospital room earlier than usual, and sees an older woman with a young girl sitting beside him on his bed. The woman turns at the sound of footsteps and peers uncertainly at Emily.

“Hello?” She says softly. “Are you here to see Simon?”

“Yes,” Emily says, approaching slowly and extending a hand. “I'm Emily Pope. I'm a colleague of his.”

“Ah, at the Bureau?” The woman says, smiling now. “I'm Noura, Simon's sister. This is Lilian, my daughter.” Noura attempts to get Lilian to greet Emily, but the little girl hides her face shyly. She has big, luminous brown eyes and a head of curly dark hair. She's every bit as adorable as Emily imagined her to be.

“It's nice to meet you,” Emily says, waving away Noura’s apology. “Simon mentions you from time to time. He's said wonderful things about you.”

“Has he?” Noura turns to look at her little brother. “He was always a sweetheart.” A pause; then a furtive sob forces its way out of her chest.

“I'm sorry,” Emily offers, feeling painfully inadequate. “Would you like me to leave?”

“It’s all right,” Noura says, collecting herself instantly; Lilian is watching her mother with wide eyes. Noura gets to her feet and takes the solemn little girl's hand.

“Well,” she says, offering Emily a dewy smile, “I'll leave you to your visit. Thank you for coming in, by the way. I'm sure Simon would appreciate it.”

“It’s no problem,” Emily mutters, and watches as Noura and Lilian leave the room.

Silence descends, unexpectedly quickly. She stands next to Simon’s bed for a beat, looking at his pallid, motionless face. She’s used to him being expressive, even to the point of fidgety; this stillness is unnerving.

In a vase on the bedside table are flowers that she’d bought from a corner store the other day. She examines them and decides that they will need to be replaced soon. She looks over the machines that are plugged into him, the readings they display; the numbers and abbreviations mean little to her. Finally, she sits down next to him, where Noura had been a few minutes ago, and produces from her bag a book that she had found earmarked on his desk—a careworn copy of _Moby Dick._ As usual, she opens the book to the page he'd marked, and begins reading out loud.

After about ten minutes, his silence becomes too much to bear, so Emily snaps the book shut. She leans over to examine his face, looking for any sign, any flicker of awareness. The stubble on his cheeks and chin has grown steadily; the doctors say his wounds are healing nicely. But otherwise, there has been no change in his condition.

She wonders if Noura is considering taking him off life support. She stands abruptly and stalks out of the room.

\---

She's grown tired of reading the same excerpt over and over again, and even though it's highly unlikely that Simon is listening, she imagines that he feels the same way. So, during her regular visits, she begins opening the book to random pages and picking up in odd places.

“‘Soon the two ships diverged their wakes; and long as the strange vessel was in view, she was seen to yaw hither and thither at every dark spot, however small, on the sea. This way and that her yards were swung around; starboard and larboard, she continued to tack; now she beat against a head sea; and again it pushed her before it; while all the while, her masts and yards were thickly clustered with men, as three tall cherry trees, when the boys are cherrying among the boughs.’”

She turns the page and continues. The rhythm of Melville’s writing lulls her, even as his words describe a tragedy.

“‘But by her still halting course and winding, woeful way, you plainly saw that this ship that so wept with spray, still remained without comfort. She was Rachel, weeping for her children’—”

“—‘because they were not.’”

She jumps out of her chair, nearly dropping the book. 

“Sorry,” Simon rasps, struggling against the dryness of his throat.

Emily stares long and hard at him. “How long have you been awake?”

“Not long. You were already reading. Did you bring these flowers?”

She sets the book down by his hand. “This is a depressing book, you know.”

“Yeah,” Simon says, grinning. “But I love it.”

“It doesn't seem like you.”

“Maybe not.”

She turns away. “I should call the nurse.”

“Emily.”

She hovers near the door, waiting. He shuffles around a bit in his bed.

“Are you all right?” He finally asks, looking away. “I mean, at the bunker… When I… Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

“Okay,” he breathes, sounding relieved. “One more thing. If you don't drink coffee, then what _do_ you drink?”

She hesitates. “I just drink water.”

His jaw drops. “What? Not even, like, apple juice? I was thinking maybe you were more of a tea drinker type?”

“Nope. Just water,” she replies, a bit sheepishly. “I never had time to fiddle with all the varieties of things.”

He seems to need a minute to digest this information. 

She takes the time to muster her nerves. “Look, I—I'm not a terribly interesting person, and I'm no good at the whole ‘dating’ thing.”

“Well,” he replies, unfettered by the sudden change in topic, “that's lucky, because I'm not very good at the whole ‘dating’ thing, either. But I like you, and I think you're maybe a little into me, too.”

She's instantly flustered. “That's—nice, but what about our jobs? Between the two of us, we have a massive responsibility to the Bureau. I can think of a million ways where us dating results in disaster.”

“I know,” he confesses quietly. “I've thought about that too. But we've got Jesse, and Albert, and that kid who's replacing Tommasi—dammit, what's his name—”

“Zacchaeus,” Emily says.

“Yeah, Zach. And Underhill, and even Langston. We're surrounded by people who care about us, and about the Bureau. It won't be like with Trench and Darling and the others—the secret agendas, the unbridled obsessions. We have people who won't hesitate to tell us when we're out of line.”

“But what if we don't listen? What if...what if we mess up?” 

“What if we don't?”

Emily sits down in the chair. She'd never considered that possibility.

“It's a narrow road,” she mutters. “There will be thousands of opportunities for us to screw up.”

He thinks, then shrugs. “Just sounds like life to me.”

They stare at each other for a long moment.

“If we're going to do this,” Emily finally says, trying to sound firm, “we have to do it right. We need to ask Jesse and HR for their opinion. We have to go by the rules, sign all the forms, check all the boxes.”

“Of course,” Simon says.

“And it can't be a secret. I mean, I'm not saying we need to send out a Bureau-wide memo or—or make out in the cafeteria—”

Simon’s mouth drops open.

“—but,” she continues quickly, “the other Heads need to know. They need to hear it from us.”

He closes his mouth. “Agreed,” he nods.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Silence.

“Listen,” Simon says, digging his elbows into the mattress until he's in a half-sitting position, “there's this new tea shop that opened up near Noura’s place. Apparently it's got a pretty good selection. They also have good pastries. Tea and pastries.”

Emily finds herself smiling.

“So, uh,” he mumbles. “When you said, back in the bunker, that you'd take me up on that date… Did you mean it? Because if you did—if you still do—then maybe we could...check out the tea place together.”

“I meant it. I still do.”

“Okay.”

He’s grinning at her now, that genuine, boyish grin that she likes. He has bedhead, and bags under his eyes, and his grandpa shoes are peeking out from underneath the hospital bed. He’s never looked so handsome. 

She gets up from the chair.

“I'm going to call the nurse. I'll come see you tomorrow,” she says. Before he has a chance to respond, she leans down and kisses him (on his cheek, because she doesn't have a near-death experience fortifying her at the moment).

And then, as usual, she flees from the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (actually, I only drink water...)
> 
> I just finished the game and got a bit into the expansion packs, and I realized that Emily would probably be pretty averse to the idea of forming an attachment to a co-worker. So hopefully she's less out of character in this chapter?? I dunno. I'm also not sure I've got Simon's character down, either. But at this point I've gone in way too many circles to be sure so I'm just going to post this and be done with it. Let me know what you think!


	3. games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily and Simon are complete opposites, and trying to work together is nothing short of a nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Tags:**
> 
>   * Angst
>   * Dash of fluff
>   * Explicit sexual content
>   * Questionable coworker dynamics
>   * My first ever attempt at porn omg
>   * Never thought it would be for Control?!
>   * I meant to write a normal fic but this somehow happened
>   * I hope you didn't come here looking for consistent characterization
> 


Emily takes a deep breath and raps on the door of the Head of Security’s office. A beat, and then a muffled “Yeah?”

She puts on a polite smile and pushes the door open. “You wanted to see me earlier?”

“Pope.” Simon rises from his seat, one hand twitching up to adjust his already-straight tie. “Come in.”

Emily shuts the door behind her and slips into the visitor’s chair. Simon lowers himself back into his own chair, clasps his hands under his desk, avoids her eyes. 

Emily hasn’t interacted much with the new Head of Security. From what she’s been able to tell, he’s...likeable. Hardworking. Stolid. But perhaps a bit bland. A little too buttoned-up; a little too by-the-book. She crosses her legs, clipboard at the ready, and waits, mildly curious. 

Simon clears his throat. “I was wondering if you could have a word with Dr. Saba for me.”

“Dr. Saba? About what?”

“About ignoring security protocol and transporting paranatural substances across firebreaks without the necessary Black Rock plating.”

“Oh.” Emily blinks. “Those were emergency incidents. They shouldn’t happen often.”

Something flexes in Simon’s jaw. “Security protocols aren’t there to be ignored. Research needs to respect protocol, just like everyone else.”

“Sometimes, science doesn’t work within the parameters of protocols. Emergencies happen.”

“It would have taken Saba all of ten minutes to add the proper Black Rock plating to his transport yesterday.”

“If Dr. Saba had taken ten extra minutes to outfit his transport with Black Rock plating, the substances he was bringing me would have decayed beyond the point of usefulness. Sometimes there aren’t ten minutes to spare.”

“I thought we'd agreed that protocols wouldn't be so easily ignored, now that we’re trying to avoid repeating Darling’s mistakes,” Simon says, his voice unmistakably acerbic.

Emily narrows her eyes. Did he just liken her to Darling? The _nerve_ of this man—

“Well, you have nothing to worry about, Arish,” she says, matching his tone. “I’ll speak to Dr. Saba.”

A deep crease appears between his eyebrows, and she knows that he knows that she intends to do no such thing. She rises to her feet, and he to his; he’s stone-faced, and a vein in his left temple is startlingly visible.

“See that you do,” he says after a tense moment, inclining his head. Emily feels anger rising up in her chest, and it’s all she can do to hold her face still and direct her feet towards the door.

As she hurries back to her office, boots slapping angrily against the ground, she can’t help but smirk.

It looks like the mild-mannered Head of Security has some bite to him.

\---

“So,” Jesse says, poking nonchalantly at her ravioli during her weekly lunch with Emily.

Emily raises her eyebrows at the Director. “So?”

“So,” Jesse repeats slowly, “I’ve heard reports from numerous concerned personnel—who shall remain anonymous, of course—that you and Arish haven’t been getting along.”

Emily frowns down at her salad. It’s been several months since her first encounter with Simon, and things have only worsened since then. 

“I mean,” Jesse says, putting her fork down, “people are telling me that you two are yelling at each other. _Yelling._ I’ve never seen Arish raise his voice at anyone, and I have a hard time imagining you losing your cool. What is going on?”

Emily, caught somewhere between fury and shame, stabs uselessly at her salad. “I—look, I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like Arish and I have zero common ground. Normally I’m able to work with people I don’t get along with, but—talking to Arish is like—like body-slamming a brick wall. He's so intent on enforcing his security protocols that he doesn’t stop to think about their impact on our work.”

“Well, I'm sure he feels the same way about you,” Jesse deadpans. “Look. He’s my Head of Security, and you’re my Head of Research. I value both of you, probably more than you realize, but I also expect both of you to be better than this.”

Emily has rarely heard Jesse’s “Director” voice, and never thought she would bear the brunt of it. She has the sense to feel ashamed.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll try harder, I promise.”

“Good,” Jesse says, grinning sheepishly. “That's all I can ask of you.”

Emily keeps her head bowed as Jesse quickly sheds her Director persona and picks up a lighter topic. The day Jesse decides to remain in her Director persona will be a terrifying day indeed.

\---

Not a week later, Jesse's Director persona is the last thing on Emily's mind as she stands toe-to-toe with Simon. Simon has evidently gotten a talking-to from Jesse as well, because he's making a concerted effort to keep his voice level. But a vein in his left temple—the one that always shows itself when he's worked up—is showing itself now.

“How do you expect to run an ethical, transparent department if you let your scientists’ breaches of protocol slide?” He's demanding.

“And how do you expect Research to keep you up to date on our findings if you don't let us _do our jobs?_ ”

“I thought we agreed on a revised set of protocols last week.”

“And I'm telling you now that those protocols need to be revised again. We tried running with them for a week, as promised, and they didn't work out for us.”

“Nothing works out for you fuckin’ lab coats,” Simon spits, and something in Emily's stomach jumps.

“Oh, are we resorting to name-calling now?” She demands, stepping around Simon's desk and getting in his face. “How about this? You _delusional mall cops_ think you can circumvent the laws of paraphysics with pieces of paper—”

His eyes widen, almost imperceptibly, and he takes an aggressive step forward; she's drawing her hand back before she knows what she's doing. He sees her incoming fist and grabs her by the wrists, forcing her arms down.

They struggle for a few seconds. Emily's blood pounds in her ears as she uses everything—her fingers, her elbows, her knees—to fight his grip. But struggling against him is, as she'd said to Jesse, like fighting a brick wall. His burning eyes and iron grip remain unfaltering as she twists and yanks and shoves.

Finally, Emily manages to pry her wrists from his grip (or perhaps he simply lets her go); she stumbles back a step and glares at him, wide-eyed; his expression is equally enraged, frightened, confused.

She snaps up her clipboard, which was knocked to the ground during their struggle, and rushes out of his office. Her feet, operating purely on muscle memory, take her to the nearest women's bathroom. She lets the bathroom door slam shut behind her, fumbles with the faucet, and splashes cold water on her face.

Once the skin of her face no longer feels like it's burning, she turns off the water and, bracing her hands on either side of the sink, stares at herself in the mirror.

\---

A few days later, she's in his office again. She stands at the far end of the room, still unsure of how she feels about their previous meeting, and hoping that the physical distance will help keep the situation from spiraling out of control. He's equally wary, his hands stuffed resolutely in his pockets.

But soon enough—inevitably, perhaps—she's crossed to the middle of his office, and he's stepped around his desk and is standing with his nose inches from hers, and they're exchanging barbs faster than she can keep track of, and all pretense of trying to keep the conversation civil has been dropped.

She doesn't even remember what they're arguing about anymore. Maybe Dr. Saba has been careless again, or maybe her proposed revisions to Quarry security protocols are outrageous. Whatever it is, it doesn't seem to matter. It feels inevitable, almost frighteningly natural, for her to raise her hand, to bait him into crossing that line. And when his hands close around her wrists, it's as though, for the first time, they've finally managed to agree on something.

He pushes her back this time, with infuriatingly little effort, and her back bumps against a bookshelf. Her knee slams into his as she twists, and he snarls something and pushes her harder against the bookshelf, bringing his face dangerously close to hers. She has the sudden urge to bite him, and, for a terrifying moment, she seriously considers following through.

Then, his eyes go wide, and he abruptly breaks the spell; he releases her and withdraws quickly, turning his back on her. She stands there, pressed against the bookshelf, and watches as his tensed shoulders rise and fall rapidly with his breaths. 

She isn’t sure how long they stand like that. Her mind is racing a mile a minute, and her normally tightly-wound thoughts are scattered like marbles on the ground. 

His head twitches; he brings a hand to his face. At his movement, she’s snapped out of her daze; she steps away from the bookshelf, crouches down numbly to pick up her clipboard. She rises and stares at Simon's back for another beat, before quietly letting herself out of his office.

\---

Emily waits until 5:30pm. Jesse is fairly adamant about people heading home at 5, and normally, by 5:30, the House is mostly deserted.

Emily grabs her coat and bag, turns off her office lights, locks the door. She makes her way quietly down to Simon's office, stands in the silent hallway, and listens through his door for a moment. She takes a deep breath and knocks.

“Come in,” he calls. He sounds distracted and a little annoyed.

She slips into his office, shutting the door quickly behind her. When he looks up and sees her standing there, his expression becomes guarded, and he gets to his feet slowly. He'd been expecting her.

He stands there for a moment, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, avoiding her eyes.

“Listen,” he finally mumbles. “I wanted to apologize for my behavior earlier today. I shouldn't have used physical force—”

He glances up at her, and he must see her oddly thoughtful expression, because he pauses.

“Er,” he fumbles. “I'm sorry that things got so out of hand—I don't know what came over me. But I was hoping that we could—start over—?”

He stumbles to a stop as he watches Emily dump her things on the visitor’s chair and advance on him. 

Clearly panicked, he tries a different route. “I know you're angry, and you have every right to be—”

She grabs his tie, winding it around her knuckles—it's a cotton tie, so she feels less guilty about mangling it—and she presses herself bodily against him, watching his face closely.

He freezes. After a moment of choked silence, he grabs her by the upper arms to push her away, and she surges against him as though she's maneuvering to take another swing at him. They struggle wordlessly. She twists out of his grip, grabs him by the collar, and grinds against him again, still watching his reaction intently.

His expression turns dangerous, and suddenly he isn't struggling against her anymore.

“What the fuck are you doing?” He snarls, winding an arm tightly around her waist—and she almost cackles with glee. _There he is._

She glares at him instead, squirming, and snaps: “Isn't it obvious?”

He makes a halfhearted attempt to push her away, his fingers digging into her arm; they stumble back against his desk, knocking papers onto the ground and sending his chair spinning. He grunts as his thighs hit metal, and releases her arm to catch himself from toppling over. She hasn't let go of his crumpled collar, and he hasn't moved the arm clamped around her waist, and they stare at each other, noses almost bumping.

She gauges his expression and sees turmoil—his face is flushed a dark red, his pupils blown wide, and he looks angry and uncertain and incredibly turned on. He scrutinizes her expression in return, desperate to understand what's going on, and sees the challenge in her eyes. 

She sees the moment he understands.

“Are you free tonight?” He asks roughly.

She grins. “What's your address?”

He releases her waist, turning to disentangle himself from her grip. She steps back to straighten her hair and shirt as he opens a drawer to dig around for an index card.

She watches as he pauses to steady his shaking hands, and as he scribbles something down on the card. She skims it when he hands it to her; she knows the area, and does some quick figuring.

“I'll be there at 9,” she says. When he doesn't respond, she sweeps up her things from the visitor's chair and leaves quickly.

As the door swings shut, Simon drops his pen and reaches up to straighten his collar with still-shaking fingers. He wonders what exactly just happened, and what the hell it is he's just agreed to.

\---

8:58pm, and Simon’s regretting every decision that’s led him to this point.

He’s pacing the length of his living room agitatedly, fully sober (and regretting his decision to not rely on alcohol). He tries briefly to convince himself that there’s a chance she won’t show, but somehow, knowing what little he knows about her, he gets the sense that she won’t back down from her own challenge.

He looks at his clock. 8:59. _Jesus._ Maybe he should have a drink after all. He hurries to his fridge, then stands there wondering if he really wants to smell like beer when he meets Emily Pope outside of work for the first time.

His clock chimes 9, and he turns and hurries back into his living room. He hears the stairwell door open and close. He doesn’t hear footsteps, but he sees a shadow appear under his apartment door. She doesn’t knock—she just stands there, waiting. Somehow that doesn’t surprise him.

He walks to the door like an automaton and opens it. 

She looks up at him with that not-glare of hers that confuses him so fucking much, and he steps aside to let her in. 

She removes her coat and boots with quick, efficient movements, and stores them, along with her bag, in his closet. She notes the numerous empty hangers and generous shoe rack space.

By the time she turns around to face him, he’s gone to stand by his couch, which is an old, battered thing upholstered with brown cloth; the mismatched chairs, wooden coffee table, outdated television set, and thick, faded gray rug have all clearly seen better days. Various board games, the only bright spots of color in the room, are crammed into the lower shelf of the coffee table; a weak, warm light emanates from the lone floor lamp. The window, framed with dark gray curtains, faces the street. The effect is muted, bare, utilitarian—but clean, somehow soothing. 

And in the middle of it all stands Simon, in his dark blue uniform and black socks, looking very much in need of a drink. Whatever bravura had possessed him back in his office has left him, and he looks more withdrawn and suspicious and uncomfortable than Emily has ever seen him.

“Um.” He clears his throat. “Do you, uh, want anything to eat? Anything to drink?”

She shakes her head no. She’s also still in uniform; she’d been too restless to change, wouldn’t even have known what to change into. After scarfing down her dinner, she’d driven aimlessly around the city to kill time, before finally parking a few blocks from his apartment building at 8pm and reviewing Jesse's jumbled notes on the Foundation to keep her mind occupied. 

To say that she did not once consider backing down would be a lie. 

But here she is.

“We need to set some ground rules,” she says abruptly. Simon looks bewildered, but nods.

“Number one,” Emily goes on. “No kissing. Number two: no developing attachments. And number three: absolutely no hint of this while we’re at work.”

He nods again, more vigorously, relieved that he hadn't somehow misread the situation earlier that afternoon. She waits to see if he wants to add anything, but he just stands there. Well. Those three rules will have to do for now.

Emily shifts from foot to foot, growing rapidly impatient in the ensuing silence. Simon stands still, looking more apprehensive than restless.

“Do I need to take a swing at you to get you to move?” She finally asks, acidly. That seems to do something; he’s standing in front of her a moment later, fingers wrapped around her upper arm.

“Are you really going to threaten me in my own home?” He says, voice gone deadly quiet. She notices, offhand, that his eyes are hazel-green.

“What are you going to do about it?” She replies coolly, flashing a grin at him. There’s no hint of playful coyness in her voice—only provocation. He eyes her smiling mouth for a moment, before half-dragging her out of the living room and down the hall.

She’s fighting him before they’ve taken two steps, fighting literally with tooth and nail, but his grip doesn’t loosen, nor does his stride falter. She’s never seen him let something other than duty or politeness or good sense govern his actions. At work, he’s so measured and unflappable that it’s easy for her to forget how strong he is. This laser-focused resolve, this unbridled forcefulness, is new. Intriguing. _Exhilarating._

They stumble into his unlit bedroom, still locked in a struggle for dominance. She manages to hook her fingers under his tie and to rip the front of his shirt open, scattering some of the buttons; the damage to his shirt seems to annoy him. He wrestles her onto the bed and, straddling her waist, yanks the hem of her shirt out of her pants; he unbuttons her shirt rapidly but methodically, taking care not to rip out any buttons. His considerateness irks her, and she shoves at his shoulder until he loses his balance and topples over.

She moves quickly to pin him to the bed, and, perched on his chest, looks him down her nose as she peels the rest of her shirt away. She's wearing an old nude cotton bra—oh. Perhaps she should have changed into something more provocative. But he slides his hands up her back to undo the clasp of her bra, his widened eyes transfixed on her chest, and she thinks maybe it doesn't matter.

She tosses her bra aside and lifts her hips to pull his still-knotted tie over his head and to undo the rest of his shirt buttons. He sits up, pitching her easily into his lap—dammit, she needs to remember that he's stronger than he lets on—and makes quick work of his shirt and undershirt. She stumbles out of his lap, struggling with her pants and socks; he follows her lead, and then, suddenly, they're standing in their underwear at opposite sides of the bed, staring at each other with open hunger and uncertainty.

Her eyes drop from the lock of hair plastered to his forehead to his shoulders and chest, then down to the telltale bulge in his boxers. He glances at her bare chest and looks away immediately; his hands, which hang at his sides, clench and unclench.

“Look,” he mumbles. “I, uh. You don't need to do this.”

_What the fuck does_ that _mean?_ Emily scowls at him. What does he think she came here to do? Play board games?

She stalks over to his side of the bed, bends to slip her panties off, and tosses the last bit of clothing aside, and now she's standing completely naked in front of him, glaring defiantly. And that seems to finally get through to him. 

He practically shoves her back onto the bed, and the impact of her head against his pillow stuns her momentarily. He holds her wrists down at her sides as she squirms, and pushes his mouth between her thighs, rolling his eyes upward to watch her as she writhes and yelps and makes all manner of raw, undignified noises—noises new to both their ears.

He runs the flat of his tongue in just the right way, and does it again when she vocalizes her approval. She hadn't expected him to be so generous. Assertive, yes. Forceful, even, she'd hoped. But not generous. She digs her heels into his back for it, earning from him a surprised grunt—and then he scrapes his teeth along the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh, and she nearly arches off the bed.

He drags his tongue back towards her center, working intently, and before long, she feels the loose gossamer threads of pleasure in her stomach begin to coil. 

She twists and yanks her hand until he releases it, and runs her fingers through his hair, holding him in place. A few thrusts against his tongue, just so, and an orgasm suddenly crests and crashes through her, so quickly and violently that, for a moment, all coherent thought is squeezed out by a pure, bright burst of pleasure.

She's only dimly aware of her legs twitching, and of Simon lifting his face from between her legs, his mouth obscenely wet, to watch her. She wonders what her face must look like. She tries and fails to marshal her limbs into some semblance of composure.

She feels him sit up and wipe the back of his hand across his mouth, and then she feels the heat of his chest against the hypersensitive skin of hers. He pushes her arms up over her head, fingers intertwining, holding the backs of her hands against the headboard. 

And then she feels him lean down, his face hovering near hers. 

“I said no kissing,” she snaps, turning her face aside. He pauses.

“Is it okay if I kiss you here?” He lowers himself and plants a gentle kiss on her left nipple. She’s still buzzing in the afterglow of her orgasm, and her skin feels like it’s stretched over a thousand tiny electric sparks, and the feel of his lips is almost too much to bear. She arches her back, straining against his hands, and words and oxygen are impossible.

“What about here?” He murmurs, and kisses the outer swell of her breast. “Here?” Another kiss, higher, close to her collarbone. And another, on the underside of her jaw.

“Yes,” she blurts, breathless, tilting her head back. “Yes. Just not—not on my mouth.”

“Hm.” He closes his teeth around her other nipple, and she almost knees him. He experiments, alternating between kissing and scraping his teeth and dragging his tongue along her skin, and the sensations are novel and electrifying and infuriating. 

When he stops, she almost whines in protest, until he lifts himself and brings his face close to hers. For a moment, his cheek hovers next to hers, his breaths blowing harshly against her ear; he grinds himself down on her, rolling his hips slowly, and she feels the need he’s been putting off until now.

“Protection,” she pants. He blinks at her for a moment, and rolls off of her, reaching for the waistband of his boxers with one hand and a small box on his nightstand with the other hand. He fumbles with the box for a moment, unable to get it open. Glad, however, that he isn’t in an alcohol-addled haze. And _really_ glad that he hadn’t misread the situation earlier.

She struggles up onto her elbows and watches as he tosses his boxers aside and, with intense focus, rips open a packet and rolls a condom on. When he shifts to face her, she surprises him by leaning forward and running the tip of her finger along his length. He shudders appreciatively, and she wraps her fingers around the base of him and gives him one long, experimental pump.

He bats her hand away and pushes her back down onto the bed. She plants a heel in his chest, but he grabs her ankle and drags her down a few inches, pulling her to the edge of the bed. He leans forward and wraps the fingers of one hand in her hair; she yelps and claws at his arm. His other hand he plants on her hip, fingers digging into her flesh; she’ll have bruises in the morning. She grunts something incoherent and digs her feet into the mattress to tilt her hips up, and he notches himself at her entrance. 

Her eyes flicker up to his face; he's flushed, intently focused. There's a heavy pause as they look at each other, and then he’s penetrating her. She looks down and watches as he drives further and further in, adjusting his angle as he goes, until she feels him nudge something deep inside her—something that has, until now, remained untouched.

Her head falls back. He stills for a moment, breathing raggedly. 

“Okay?” He pants. She nods, unable to speak, and her vision blotches and the air rushes from her lungs as he releases her hair and begins to move.

\---

It’s late, close to midnight, when Emily jerks awake. For a moment, the unfamiliar lines of the room and the faint scent of a foreign laundry detergent set her on edge; and then, beside her, Simon shifts, letting out a light snore. And she remembers. 

As slowly as she can manage, Emily sits up, wincing as her body creaks in protest. The bedroom is dark, with only a weak, watery light stretching in from the living room. Simon is sprawled over his sheets, still naked, the blanket a tangled and damp mess underneath him; his arm is thrown over his eyes, exposing a dark tuft of armpit hair. 

Emily’s curiosity is immediately piqued, and she leans close, taking in what little detail she can make out. He’s lean, wiry, a little on the hairy side. Hands calloused and chapped (she shudders as she remembers the rough slide of his palms up her back), limbs and torso corded and knotted with purely functional muscle. In sleep, he doesn’t look angry or defensive or cautious or authoritative. Just tired, and annoyingly, vulnerably, _deliciously_ handsome. 

He twitches, and her eyes drift elsewhere. On the dark wooden nightstand where the opened box of condoms lies on its side, she’s able to make out a framed photo in which Simon is standing with a group of young men, grinning. Beside the photo is a plain metal lamp, a radio alarm clock that blares the time at her in reproachful red numbers, a pen, and what might be a rolled-up tie. On the lower shelf is stacked a few books and a notebook labeled “Weird Dreams”. The nightstand also has a drawer, but she refrains from looking in it just yet.

She rises from the bed as quietly as possible and hunts for her clothes. After getting dressed, she spies Simon’s shirt lying crumpled on the ground and picks it up, examining it for a moment; she gets down on her knees and feels along the laminate floor until she’s found all of the buttons she’d scattered earlier. She unknots his discarded tie, rolls it up, places it next to the other tie on his nightstand. 

She stands at the foot of his bed, watching him for a beat, before padding out.

After setting his shirt and buttons on the coffee table, she goes to find his bathroom. She pees, fixes her disastrous hair in the mirror, and gives into the temptation to peek into his medicine cabinet. He has only the barest of necessities; generic-brand dental- and shaving products, a comb and hair gel, a bar of soap, a stick of deodorant. His shower curtain is clear, his bath mat dark blue. Like his living room, his bathroom is clean, neutral, utilitarian. Safe.

She wanders out into his kitchen, which, after only a preliminary round of snooping, proves to be surprisingly well-used. He keeps a wide array of squeaky-clean cooking implements and utensils, and the spice rack on his counter is full of spices, some of which have names she does not recognize, and his refrigerator is stocked with proper food—raw packaged meat, eggs, fresh fruit, actual vegetables. The tiled floor is wiped clean, and the counter and stove tops are spotless. He must like cooking, and given the generous living room seating and empty coat hangers and board games, Emily surmises he must entertain friends fairly frequently.

She frowns as she circles back to his living room. How strange it is to think of Simon wearing something other than his uniform, cooking in his kitchen, laughing and talking and playing board games with friends.

Shaking off the feeling, she crosses over to his closet and roots around in her bag for her sewing kit.

\---

Some time later, Emily’s sewing the last button into place when Simon emerges from his bedroom. She glances up as he shuffles in; he’s wearing just his undershirt and boxers, and his hair is mussed, and he looks groggy and a little apprehensive. She looks back down at her sewing to avoid his eyes, and swiftly ties off the knot of the last button before thrusting the mended shirt back to him and retreating to the closet. 

From the relative safety of the other end of the room, she allows herself to look at him, and they stand there, both seemingly waiting for the other to say something.

Finally, Emily looks away and busies herself with shrugging on her overcoat, lacing up her boots, checking the contents of her bag. Without looking back at him, she lets herself quietly out of his apartment, and he stands there for a long time, staring at the closed door.

As he turns back toward his bedroom, he glances at the shirt in his hand and notices that Emily used white thread to reattach his buttons. He also notices, to his amusement, that her stitchwork is...not the best. 

He folds the shirt carefully, making sure to keep the white-stitched buttons facing outward, and places it on top of his dresser. Then, too tired to try and make sense of the day’s events, he crawls back into his bed, and is asleep before his head hits his pillow.

\---

“So,” Jesse says one day during their weekly lunch. Emily pauses mid-chew; she's learned that whenever Jesse starts a sentence with “so,” uncomfortable things tend to follow.

“I hear,” Jesse says, chasing a bit of pasta across her plate, “that you and Arish are getting along better.”

Emily swallows. “I guess you could say that.” She and Simon still butt heads over all the usual contentious topics—Saba’s conduct comes up often—but the arguments have lost their intensity and venom, and most meetings end in successful compromise.

“I'm glad to hear it,” Jesse says, grinning. “How did you guys figure it out?”

“Oh. Uh.”

_I know what his bedroom smells like. I know the way his hand feels on my thigh. I know the way he twitches when he's about to orgasm_ —

“Er, we, uh,” Emily stutters, interrupting her own thoughts. “We just had an honest heart-to-heart, you know? We found—common ground. And I think that really helped us realize that, you know. In the end, we, um, share the same goal.”

Jesse seems happy with Emily's story, and scoops the rest of her pasta into her mouth before excusing herself. Emily watches the Director hurry off to her patrol shift.

It's been several weeks since she and Simon first established their strange arrangement. She shows up at his apartment at 9pm precisely on random weekday evenings, and he lets her in silently, and they fuck like curious teenagers, like desperate animals, like calculating nemeses. For all their strained, mostly-civil conversations at the Bureau, they go entire evenings at Simon’s apartment without speaking.

He seems to make a point of wearing the shirt she’d mended on days when they are sure to see each other at work. She isn't sure if it's meant to be a taunt, or perhaps a subtle admonition, or even a bald invitation. Possibly all three.

Emily swirls her spoon around in her soup. She hasn’t been to Simon’s apartment in the past week, and his reaction has not been a disappointment. She’d dropped by his office yesterday, and the glare he'd leveled at her—well. The past week of restraint had been worth it.

She hums thoughtfully to herself. Perhaps she should pick up some lingerie on her way home tonight.

\---

That night, she steps out of the stairwell onto Simon's floor at 9 precisely, and the moment the stairwell door slams shut behind her, Simon's door swings open. A group of about four men tumble out of his apartment, laughing and shouting raucously and smelling strongly of alcohol. Behind them, Simon, grinning at one of his visitors, stops in his tracks when he sees Emily.

Thankfully, none of his friends are familiar at first glance, but Emily still turns and beats a hasty retreat down the hall. She pretends to dig in her pockets for a key until she rounds a corner, and she presses herself against the wall, listening.

Simon and his friends pause at the elevator door and discuss something that is apparently hilarious. The elevator door squeaks as it rolls open, and their voices fade as the door closes.

Emily chances a peak around the corner; the hallway is now empty. She adjusts her coat, heart pounding with relief, and hurries back to Simon's door. She tries the handle, finds it unlocked, and lets herself in.

The coffee table is covered with beer bottles and mostly-empty plates, used utensils, crumpled napkins. She sheds her outerwear and stores her things in the closet, as usual, before pausing at the coffee table, wondering if she should help move dishes to the sink.

The door creaks open. She turns and watches as Simon walks in, and tenses when his eyes go dark at the sight of her. He closes the door, leaves his coat and shoes on the ground, and advances on her. 

“One of them thought he recognized you,” he says, clearly agitated, grabbing Emily by the wrist. She's too shocked to put up much of a fight.

“What did you tell him?” She demands as he all but drags her towards the bedroom.

“What _could_ I say?” He snaps, pausing in his single-minded march to the bedroom to attack the buttons on her shirt. “I told them they were all way more drunk than I thought if they were hallucinating the Head of Research in my apartment building.”

Emily shoves at his shoulders, and they stumble into his bedroom, a tangle of undone clothing and damp skin; his breath smells like beer, and for some reason, it makes Emily's gut twist.

“Were you guys going to go out?” She asks as she works his shirt up over his head. He's wearing a plain tee and jeans—another deviation from the norm that her gut doesn't seem to like.

“I called it off.” His frown is positively murderous as he pulls her shirt down her shoulders. “Didn't think you'd show.”

He pauses, eyes widening, at the sight of her new bra.

Emily snorts. “Did you forget about our arrangement?”

“You haven't shown up in a week,” Simon snaps, going for her pants as she slides her arms out of her shirt. “I thought you'd finally lost interest in whatever sick game this is.”

It's the first time they've verbally acknowledged their arrangement. Emily narrows her eyes at him as he yanks her pants down and thumbs the lacy waistband of her new panties. “‘Sick game’? Would you rather I leave?”

He hooks a finger under the band of her bra and tugs, pulling her flush against him.

“Did you buy these for me?” He mutters as he eyes the lace-trimmed, semi-sheer cups appreciatively.

“No,” she bites, twisting away.

“You're lying,” he scolds, before turning her roughly and pushing her stomach-down onto the bed, pressing her cheek into the blanket. 

Oh. This is new.

“I didn't buy them for you,” she insists, squirming against his hold. The now-familiar smell of his bedding fills her nose, and the effect is unexpectedly soothing.

“ _Liar,_ ” he hisses. She hears the sound of a zipper being yanked down, and cranes her neck to watch his face as he releases her momentarily to shuck the rest of his clothes.

“What are you staring at?” He demands as he reaches for a condom.

She turns away. “Rough day at work?”

“My day was fine. Until you showed up.” His fingers hover along her panties, before he yanks the gusset to the side. He drags a fingertip roughly along her seam, dipping slightly into her entrance, and a burst of pleasure pulses between her thighs. He must really like the new lingerie. Or perhaps he missed her.

“Like I said,” Emily huffs, pulling her hips away, “I could leave.”

“No.” He catches her by the waist and buries himself inside her, in one delicious, punishing stroke. “You're not going anywhere.”

Emily lets out a strangled laugh, which he smothers with a quick snap of his hips.

“Everyone thinks,” she pants, fingers scrabbling against the blanket, “that you're this squeaky-clean security guy, with your stupid hair and your protocols—”—she stutters to a momentary stop when he adjusts his angle and rubs against a particular spot, and _that's it, right there_ —“—but we know better, don’t we?”

He slaps her across the globe of her ass, hard. Also new. She gasps, mind spinning.

“Could say the same for you,” he grunts as he leans forward to press himself along the length of her back, sending sparks skittering across her skin. “You got everyone thinking you're so smart and proper and aloof. Bet you've got them all fooled. But I know what you’re really like.” 

One of his hands slips under her stomach, and he presses his fingers to her clit, able now to find it without issue. His breath hits her shoulder as he thrusts again, so hard that it rucks her a few inches up the bed.

“I know just how base you are.” He snakes his other hand up along her ribs and cups her breast roughly. “I know how you like to fight. I know how you like to _fuck._ ”

Another slap across her ass. She yelps, burying her face in the blanket. He returns his hand to her clit, rubbing slow and hard, the way he knows she likes, and he drags his tongue up her neck to her ear, and she makes a sound she isn't proud of.

He's gotten better at this, Emily realizes as she hooks her feet over his thighs and reaches over her shoulder to grab a handful of his hair. He knows her body, perhaps better even than she does; he's found buttons and levers that she never knew existed, spots that elicit embarrassingly strong reactions, touches that make her mind unspool. 

He rests his forehead against her shoulder as he thrusts, holding her down and close as she strains and thrashes, until she seizes up, and he feels her walls flutter erratically around him. She gives him a moment to savor his victory, before she pulls her knees underneath herself and throws him off of her back.

He hits the mattress beside her with a surprised grunt, and she moves quickly, plucking the condom from his still-erect cock and positioning herself between his knees.

He isn't the only one who's been learning. She glances up at him, smirking at his slack-jawed anticipation, before digging her fingers into his thighs and gently sucking his tip into her mouth.

The groan that comes out of him, a strangled thing drawn out against his will, is pure music to her ears. She grins and slides her tongue in a torturous circle, just under his ridge, and he chokes out a curse and grabs a handful of her hair.

It's a bit like mutually-assured destruction, Emily muses, as she sucks him in slightly deeper, pushing his tip against the inside of her cheek, the way she knows he likes to see. He might know things about her now, things that could destroy her—but she knows equally devastating things about him. Their dynamic is still an endless struggle for dominance, but the heated press of his chest against her back, and the slide of him in and out of her mouth, and the tug of his fingers in her hair—it's all starting to feel like something other than mere provocation. 

She bobs her head slowly, dragging her tongue along a vein. He twitches, and floods her mouth suddenly with cum, the muscles in his legs straining; she shifts her grip on his thighs and drags her lips mercilessly along his length, and he jerks violently, sucking in air.

_Affection._ She freezes, and only puts up a half-hearted fight as he hauls her up the bed and rolls her underneath him.

That's what this is all starting to feel like, she realizes, as he pins her hands above her head and laps at a stream of cum trickling down her chin, the corners of his eyes crinkling, before moving down and nipping at her breast through her new bra.

This is all starting to feel like—affection.

She panics and bucks her hips, trying to dislodge him, but he releases her hands to pin her hips to the mattress, and she tries to reach for his hair, to open her mouth and tell him to stop, but then he’s kissing the insides of her thighs, the lacy edges of her panties, the soaked silk of the gusset, and the word dies on her lips.

\---

Later, when she’s pulling her coat on and he’s standing in the living room watching her, she pauses for a moment to look at him.

Something between them has shifted. Something she can’t name—and, worse, something she can’t control.

“You know that women have periods, right?” She says instead. She watches understanding bloom slowly across his face. He looks like he wants to say something, so she turns and leaves.

\---

When Emily wakes up around midnight, surrounded by the lulling smell of Simon’s detergent and Simon’s shampoo and Simon, she lies there, listening for a moment to his snoring, before rolling over and sitting up slowly. 

This needs to stop. It’s not the first time she’s had this thought. She’s no expert on relationships, but there is no way that whatever it is she’s engaging in with Simon is healthy. And it certainly isn’t where she thought this would all end up. When she’d first thrown down the gauntlet in his office, all those weeks ago, the lines had been so clear. But now, everything’s crossed and blurred, and she doesn’t know what exactly it is she feels anymore, and the murkiness is exhausting and frightening and not at all what she’d intended.

What _had_ she intended? God, she doesn’t know anymore. She huffs, frustrated with herself, and makes to get up.

Simon grabs her hand. She very nearly screams. 

“Jesus,” she whisper-shouts. “I thought you were asleep.”

“You woke me.” The accusation in his voice is muffled by drowsiness. “Stay.”

Emily freezes. “What?”

His hand slips from hers. “Stay.”

She sits on the edge of his bed and listens as his breathing evens out. 

\---

When she wakes in the morning, the sense of wrongness descends immediately. She sits up, holding Simon’s blanket to her chest—she’s in Simon’s bed, naked and alone, and the morning sunlight is peeking in through the window blinds, and this is _wrong_ —and she listens, on full alert and on the verge of panic.

She hears shuffling in the kitchen, the sound of a pan on the stove. She stayed at Simon’s apartment overnight, and now he’s making fucking _breakfast._

_Oh my god._

Emily tumbles out of his bed and races to get dressed; she slips out of the bedroom quietly and tiptoes in the direction of the bathroom, which— _goddammit_ —cannot be reached without passing the kitchen.

He looks up, expression guarded, as she appears in the doorway. He's already in uniform, and it looks like he's moving a pat of butter around in a pan.

“What time is it?” She blurts after a beat of silence passes between them.

“About quarter after seven.”

“Fuck.” She runs a hand across her forehead.

“You were sleeping so soundly,” he says by way of apology. “Didn't want to wake you.”

She mutters something that she hopes sounds polite and makes a dash for the bathroom. She splashes her face with cold water, rinses the stale taste from her mouth, runs her wet fingers through her hair, glares at her own frazzled reflection.

_This is your own fucking fault._

She turns away and waits until the burning in her face and neck have subsided, before steeling herself and stepping slowly out of the bathroom.

Being in Simon's apartment during the day is strange. The morning sunlight pouring in through the open blinds gives the objects in the living room stark, unfamiliar shadows; the aroma of scrambled eggs and toast and coffee is both homey and jarring; and, for the first time since she began visiting, the television is on, turned to a morning news channel, the volume cranked down. 

Under different circumstances— _normal_ circumstances—this would all be nice.

There really is nothing she can think of to say to Simon, and she’s dangerously close to being late for work, so she moves quickly to the closet and shrugs on her coat. 

“You could stay for breakfast,” he says, appearing in the doorway, with that guarded look of his that Emily is really beginning to find aggravating.

She laughs derisively as she steps into her boots. “That would most certainly be against the rules.”

He frowns. “You didn't mention a rule against eating together.”

“Well, I've added it to the list,” she snaps. 

“It's just scrambled eggs,” he says, exasperated, as she opens the door. She glares back at him for a moment before slamming the door shut.

\---

They don't see each other at work that day, and Simon fully expects to spend that evening alone as well.

He reflects as he pushes the remnants of his late dinner around his bowl. He really shouldn't complain. He's never been one for vague, complicated relationships, and the thought of Salvador secretly sleeping with another Head makes him both angry and unspeakably guilty. 

Besides, every night that she doesn't show, things become clearer, more sensible. And every night she _does_ show, all of that clarity, all of the sensible things he tries to fill his mind with, are tossed out the window.

And clarity and sense are good, right?

Maybe this is it. Maybe the next time she shows up, he'll finally find it in himself to keep his door closed.

And then he pictures her incisive, provocative, shockingly vulnerable blue gaze, and her perfect mouth, and the precious few late-night moments when she’d been tired and unguarded enough to smile at him, and the way she'd looked that morning, all tangled up and sound asleep in his bed. And he already knows what the outcome will be every time she shows up at his door.

But not tonight. She's never visited on consecutive nights, and judging from how upset she'd been this morning—

His clock strikes 9, and the stairwell door slams shut. 

The television is on, so he isn't sure if he's just hearing things; but then her shadow appears under his door, and he sets his dinner on the coffee table, the bowl clattering from the slight tremor of his hands, and he nearly trips over himself in his hurry to the door.

When he finally gets the door open, she's ready. She lunges forward and shoves him; as he stumbles back, a protest on his lips, she steps in, slamming the door shut behind her, and, advancing on him, sheds her coat quickly and makes to shove him again.

“What the fuck?” He exclaims as he catches her wrists. “Why are you here?”

“What do you mean, ‘why’?” She demands, twisting in his grip.

“You're—you're never here two days in a row,” he grunts, forcing her wrists down to her sides, hauling her up against his chest to immobilize her.

“Just tell me to leave, and I will.” She digs her booted feet into the ground and shoves against him with all her weight. She's always throwing down the gauntlet, always blowing in like a tornado bent on his destruction, and normally it's deliciously arousing—but today he's just too exhausted.

“You wanna fight me?” He mutters, grunting as she steps on his toe. “This how it's always going to be?”

She frowns at him, her eyes dizzyingly close, as she struggles to shuck her boots. “What would you rather this be?”

He lets go of her. “I don't know,” he exclaims, throwing his hands up as he turns his back on her. She leaves her boots in an unseemly pile and goes after him, furious; she grabs him by the collar and drags him back to her, forcing him to face her.

“Tell me to leave,” she challenges, pushing her face aggressively into his, and the look he levels at her is gut-wrenching. It's not the effect she expected or wanted, so she shoves him back towards his bedroom with a growl of frustration.

“What do you want from me?” She demands. 

He stands there, looking spectacularly manhandled and out of his depth; he looks away, mumbling something.

“What?” She says.

“I just want you.”

“You—you—” she sputters. She has no words for the specific kind of aggravating that he's being right now, so she grabs him by the front of his shirt and, ignoring his expression, pushes him into the bedroom.

They fall into his bed, fully clothed; she attacks his belt, before undoing his pants with unnecessary force. And he just—lies there.

When she's succeeded in yanking his pants and boxers down a few inches, she finds him already half-erect, and closes her lips around him without hesitation, savoring the familiarity of his begrudging groans.

Before she can settle into a rhythm, he grabs her by the hair and tries to drag her up, but she shoves his hands aside.

“You want me?” She pants around him. “This is me.”

“No,” he moans. He reaches for his nightstand, where the box of condoms sits, but she wrestles his hand down and stands to remove her pants and panties. She climbs onto him, pinning his wrists down and lining herself along his cock, and, without preamble, sinks down onto him, up to the hilt.

His head rises from his pillow as he gasps raggedly, but even through his pleasure, he stares up at her with a question in his eyes.

“I've always had protection,” she grits out, raising her hips slightly and slamming down onto him.

“Then why…?”

“Are you complaining?”

He glares up at her, then yanks his wrists out of her grip and drags her down, pulling her chest flush against his. She struggles violently, but he clamps his arms around her and holds her tightly in place, and their foreheads knock together awkwardly as he snaps his hips upward.

“I don't want to fight you,” he pants, his voice harsh in her ear. “I don't want to be that way with you.”

“Well, I do,” she snaps, his pants chafing against the skin of her inner thighs as they move together.

“Why?” 

“We hate each other. What other way is there for us to be?”

He rolls them over, pinning her down, and holds her still.

“Do you hate me?” He asks, his voice rough with exertion. She swallows and turns her face aside, trying to buck her hips up; but he bears down on her, not giving her any room to maneuver.

“Tell me,” he says, his mouth hovering dangerously close to hers. “Do you hate me?”

She glares up at him defiantly, and tries to think of something to say, something witty or hurtful or opaque—but nothing comes to her.

He watches her mouth work silently for a moment before shifting his hips slightly and moving shallowly in and out of her, torturously slow. He rests his forehead against hers, and they stare at each other as he quickens the pace.

“Tell me,” he repeats, and he tilts his hips and nudges that spot inside of her that always sets her nerves aflame, and she cries out, writhing against him.

“No,” she begs. “I don't hate you.”

“Good girl,” he whispers, dropping a quick kiss on her flushed cheek. “Was that so hard?”

“Fuck you,” she whines, distantly surprised by the—endearment?—and struggles to free her arms.

“That's exactly what I'm doing,” he snarks, and she's about to tell him off when he tightens his grip around her and snaps his hips, punishingly hard, and she sees stars.

“I don't hate you, either,” he says, dragging his lips along her jaw as he pounds her mercilessly. “In fact, I rather like you.”

“You don't,” she says, her words jostled by his harsh movements. “You can't.”

“Too late to have that argument. Now tell me you like me too, Emily.”

She tries, fleetingly, to remember if he's ever called her by her first name before. He nips at her jaw, forcing her attention back to him.

“I don't,” she insists weakly.

“Still fighting me,” he tuts, and grinds to a halt, his hands moving down to grab handfuls of her ass and hold her still.

“Tell me,” he repeats, and the sudden loss of friction makes Emily want to scream. “Tell me, and I'll fuck you the way you like.”

“No,” she grits out, then winces as he drags his tip along her entrance.

“Tell me.” He peppers kisses along her neck, down to her collarbone; he moves further down to run his teeth lightly along her chest. Pleasant, but not what she wants.

“No,” she tries again, except this time it sounds more like a plea.

He moves further down and drags his tongue down her stomach, running his thumb roughly along the left lip of her entrance—also incredibly pleasant, but also not what she wants. 

“Fine!” She bursts. “I like you. Are you _fucking_ happy? I like you, you—you infuriating piece of—”

He moves quickly to cut her off, and her sentence ends in a wet gasp as he crawls back up her body, again bundling her up in his arms, and thrusts into her without warning. He croons something into her neck, but she barely hears him as he begins to move, punishingly deep and mind-splinteringly slow. It's not what she'd thought he meant, but it's good. Holy fuck, it's _amazing._

He bumps and rubs exquisitely against all the right spots, his mouth hovering at the corner of hers; his hands palm her ass easily, guiding her hips; his gaze, trained intently on her, is simultaneously aggravating and arousing.

“Now come for me,” he mumbles tightly against her mouth, filling her with an obscenely slow roll of his hips.

And she does.

He pumps his hips a few more times, and then, with that particular twitch of his, he comes as well, his temple bumping gently against hers. Emily's mind is flooded with the smell of sex, the sound of labored breathing, the feel of Simon's mouth as he presses gentle kisses on her cheek, her neck, her ear.

They lie there, half-dressed and exhausted—and then Simon's stomach rumbles.

“I interrupted your dinner,” Emily realizes.

“Can wait,” he mumbles against her jaw.

“Your television is still on.”

“S’fine.” He moves his hand and strokes his thumb in gentle circles over her hip bone, and it feels unaccountably nice.

Which reminds her of the strange admission they'd made to each other a few moments ago.

She frowns up at the ceiling. She'd known that coming here two nights in a row was a mistake. She'd known that the thing growing between them needed to be smothered. And yet, she'd returned to his apartment anyway, like the base creature he'd accused her of being.

He reaches up to cup her cheek—a new gesture. She turns to look at him. He’s frowning.

“You're regretting this,” he observes. 

She looks away. “Aren't you?”

He doesn't answer. His silence is surprisingly painful.

“Do you really not like the fighting?” She asks, a tad timidly.

“Normally, I do.”

“But not today,” she supplies.

He sighs, his breath tickling her skin.

“Why?” She asks.

“I don't know,” he mumbles. The calloused hand on her cheek is stroking tenderly, and she allows herself to enjoy the touch, so strange and pleasant, before turning her face away and getting out of his bed.

She finds her panties, slips them on. She pauses, returning Simon's stare, before wandering out into the living room.

The television is droning quietly, laugh tracks occasionally breaking through the indecipherable voices. On the coffee table, a bowl of half-eaten curry and rice is congealing. Emily picks up the bowl and pads into the kitchen; she pops the bowl into the microwave and waits, leaning against the counter, as the microwave hums.

When she returns to the living room, Simon is on the couch, flipping through channels, his clothing rumpled and hair mussed. He looks up as she sets the bowl down in front of him, then looks down at the food as she settles into the other end of the couch.

“I haven't poisoned it,” she mumbles peevishly as she leans her elbow on the arm of the couch and drops her chin into her palm.

He grins at her, reaches for the food. She tucks her knees up close to her chest, the skin of her legs prickling slightly with cold, and closes her eyes, listening to the sounds of the television droning and Simon eating.

\---

She awakens slowly. She's lying across something warm, and the ghostly flickering light of the television confuses her for a moment. She raises her head blearily, and the thing she's lying on sighs and shifts.

“Oh,” she exclaims, instantly awake, scrambling to get off of Simon. “I'm sorry.”

He tightens the arm draped around her waist, his eyes still closed. “It's okay,” he mumbles. “You don't have to get up.”

“Are you sure?” Emily squirms and moves upward an inch, her nose bumping against his chin. He grimaces and opens his eyes to look at her with a sleep-blurred grin, adjusting the arm around her. Seemingly without thinking, he drops a kiss on her forehead.

She stills. They usually only kiss in the heat of sex, fighting for dominance in bed. This kiss is casual, even domestic.

He's watching her, eyes still heavily lidded but more alert. She raises her chin to watch him back, and he moves his hand to her shoulder, his fingers rough against her skin. Their faces hover together for a moment, and Emily feels as though she can't breathe. She isn't sure who leans in—maybe they both lean in—and then their lips brush, so lightly and fleetingly that it might not even have happened.

She panics.

Before she knows what she's doing, she's jumped out of the sofa, tearing herself from his grip. He scrambles to his feet as well, wide-eyed.

“I'm sorry,” he rushes to say. “I didn't mean to—I wasn't thinking.”

She hurries around him into the bedroom, and stands for a moment, trying to regain some semblance of control over her spinning thoughts and shaking hands.

When she finally emerges, fully dressed, he’s sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees, frowning at the ground. He looks up at her, and his expression is unbearable, so she looks away and crosses quickly to the closet. 

He doesn't stop her as she grabs her things and leaves.

\---

Emily doesn't return to Simon's apartment for weeks. She writes him memos or sends an assistant when he requests to meet with her; she backpedals when she sees him down a hallway. She tries not to watch him for his reaction, tries not to notice when he's wearing the shirt she mended.

(Was it that first night, when she mended his shirt? Was that when things changed between them? Was it the moment she decided to buy new lingerie? Or was it the last night, when they kissed? It doesn't matter.)

She’s passing by the Quarry one day, when she overhears someone yelling, and someone else trying to reason with them in a calmer tone. She peeks in, curious, and sees Dr. Saba waving his hands angrily at a weary-looking Simon. Around them, a few Research assistants look on, unsure of what to do.

“Pope!” Dr. Saba spots her before she can duck out. He waves her over frantically. “Just the person I need. Would you please explain to Arish here why we need to expedite Black Rock inspections for the Fra Mauro phase 2—”

“I sent you the timeline a week ago, Dr. Saba,” Simon interrupts, thrown by Emily's sudden appearance, but still adamant in his position. “I fail to see why you couldn't have begun the inspection process earlier—”

“Do what he says, Dr. Saba,” Emily deadpans, looking at the ground, wanting to be anywhere but here.

Both men look shocked. “What—? But—”

“The Fra Mauro investigation isn't high priority. Complete the inspection process like Arish wants you to. Let me know when you're done.” She's barely finished speaking before she's out the door.

Dr. Saba makes highly disapproving sounds as he and his assistants leave. Simon stares after Emily, frowning.

\---

A gentle rap on her door. Emily looks up, mentally buried in a mass of notes and calculations, and smiles distantly when she sees Jesse.

“Hey,” Jesse says, meandering into her office. “What are you still doing here?”

Emily glances at her clock. It's almost 9:30pm. She straightens, rubbing her forehead. “Wow. I must have lost track of time.”

“Understatement of the day,” Jesse mutters. “What are you working on?”

“Oh, uh.” Emily gestures vaguely. “Just—trying to figure out the correct density and thickness of Black Rock we're going to need for the cage—”

“For the Barrington project? Emily, that's scheduled for weeks from now.”

“I know.” Emily looks away. “I just figured, you know, I have the time—and it's not like I have anything going on at home.”

Jesse stares at her for a moment. “Emily, is everything all right?”

“Of course everything is all right. Why would anything be wrong?”

“It's just… I know you don't mind overtime, but I've never seen you here past, like, 8. And we don't even have any urgent ongoing situations or exciting recent developments.”

Emily stares down at her papers. She'd arrived at the correct density and thickness hours ago. It's just that on some nights, such as tonight, she can't bring herself to go back to her empty apartment.

“Go home, Emily,” Jesse says gently. “Everything will still be standing in the morning.”

“Yes, ma’am, Director Faden.” Emily salutes sarcastically, and Jesse laughs uncomfortably on her way out.

Once Jesse closes the door, Emily slumps over her desk, resting her forehead on her arms. 

\---

The next morning, an aide delivers to Emily a memo that's signed “Acting Head of Security Juarez.”

Emily frowns up at the aide. “Juarez is Head of Security?”

“Only temporarily,” the girl replies. “Arish is out on medical leave.”

“Medical leave?”

“That's right.” The girl leans in. “I don't know much, but they say he was in a car accident on his way home last night. He's in the county hospital. Injured pretty bad, if the rumors are to be believed.”

“Injured?” 

The girl eyes her. “Girl, I’ll drop by more often to fill you in. Sounds like you need it.”

Emily feels a flash of concern that she struggles to tamp down as the aide saunters away. She has no reason, no right, to feel concern for Simon's well-being. 

She tries to reason with herself as she stares blankly at Juarez’s memo. Rumors are often overexaggerated. Simon might simply be out for a day, two at most. Besides, the Head of Security at the FBC, taken out by a mere _car crash?_ No. He's probably fine. 

But Juarez continues to write memos as acting Head the next day, and the day after, and several days after that. It isn't until more than a week has passed when Juarez's name is finally replaced by Simon's.

Emily can't escape the talk on the day Simon returns. Everyone seems to be abuzz about how bad the injuries must have been, given how rough he looks. The more boisterous security personnel boast about how their Head narrowly escaped death, which only makes Emily's stomach twist up in dread.

That night, she drives home, has a prolonged argument with herself over a microwaved dinner, and drives out of her apartment complex at 8:30. She appears outside Simon’s door at 9 on the dot, and stands there, balking.

She hears nothing and sees no light under his door. Maybe he isn't home. She sighs with relief and turns away. This was a stupid idea, after all. Best to hurry away now before anyone sees—

Simon's door swings open slowly, and there he is, standing in his doorway, his arm in a cast and his eyes bloodshot and his complexion startlingly pale, and Emily’s stomach drops to her knees at the sight of him.

He regards her for a moment with unreadable eyes, before stepping aside slowly.

She exhales and follows him into his apartment.

She closes the door and stands pressed against it, and he moves to stand by his couch in the unlit living room. His bedroom light appears to be on, down the hallway; the rest of his apartment is dark. She hasn't been here in ages. She can't help but glance about, taking in the sights and smells and feelings that she's tried so hard to block from her mind until now.

They stand, staring at each other, for a long moment. Finally, he turns his face away and mutters, his voice hollow: “Why are you here?”

Emily shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot. “I heard you almost died.”

“Yeah. Doctor told me as much,” he replies flatly.

“Is…” She swallows nervously. “Is there anything I can do?”

“No. I'm fine.”

She approaches him then, slowly, taking in his slightly bedraggled appearance, his expression of exhaustion. She notices the sweat beading on his forehead.

“You're in pain,” she observes. “Why aren't you taking any pain medication?”

“Emily.” He raises his eyes to hers. “Why are you here?”

“I just wanted to know if I could help—”

“Why are you pretending to care?” He snaps. She takes one more step toward him and wraps her arms around his shoulders. He stumbles a step back, and she stumbles after him in a burst of shamelessness, turning her head and pressing her lips to his jaw. He flinches, as though the touch of her mouth cuts him, but he doesn’t move away; his good arm is pressed stiffly to his side, and she can feel the rapid, soundless rise and fall of his shoulders.

“What do you want from me, Emily?” He finally asks, his voice defeated and bitter and utterly exhausted. 

And she knows she shouldn't have come. She draws away, guilty and humiliated.

“I'll leave,” she promises, her voice surprisingly even. She turns away and disappears quickly out the door.

He stands there, listening to her hurried footsteps and the clang of the stairwell door, and, in a fit of frustration, lunges and upturns his coffee table in one angry swipe. He turns and stalks into his bedroom, slamming the door shut.

\---

Months pass. She finds a way to face him again, for the Bureau if not for herself; she finds other things to fill her mind in the evenings, other objects of interest to blot out the memories. And, little by little, seeing him and talking to him and arguing with him over protocols become less painful. 

On some days, the distance in his manner and the indifference in his eyes are difficult to bear. But on other days, if she really tries, she can even forget that they were once anything other than hostile co-workers. Or perhaps they were never more than that to begin with. She isn't sure which is worse, but it's too late now to do anything other than to resign herself to the fact that she screwed up, and to try and move on.

\---

One night, she receives a call from her mother that changes everything. 

Two days later, she's bustling about in her office, dumping personal effects into boxes and attempting to impose some order on her massive collection of notepads and books. 

Someone knocks on her door. “Hey, Pope? I've got that lab report you wanted.”

“Great. Thanks, Lewis. Could you put it in that box there?”

As Lewis moves to comply, another person appears at her door. “Pope? I've collated and updated all existing data on the Barrington case. Figured you'd want to take it with you.”

“Oh, Jesus. Thank you, Kaufmann, I forgot about that.”

Lewis and Kaufmann excuse themselves and hurry away. Shortly after, while Emily is clearing out a desk drawer, someone else knocks on her open door.

“Yes?” She calls. 

No answer. She looks up.

Simon is standing in her doorway, watching her, and she's fiercely proud of the way her heart doesn't skip a beat at the sight of him.

He clears his throat and looks away. “I heard today is your last day.”

“Yes.” Emily resumes combing through the contents of the drawer. “My mother has been diagnosed with a terminal condition. I'm moving home.”

“Oh. I'm sorry to hear about your mom.”

“Thanks.”

He stands there for a moment, frowning at his boots.

“Is there any way you could stay here?” He asks quietly, and she can tell that he knows how ridiculous the question is.

“No,” she replies gently. “She doesn't have anyone else.”

She closes the drawer and opens the next one. “Jesse's appointing a temporary Head while I'm gone,” she continues. “She said she'll reinstate me once I—once I can return, and that she'll make sure I'm kept in the loop on major developments.”

“So you'll be back?”

“Hopefully, yes.”

“Do you...?”

“I don't know. Could be one, two years. Could be more.”

A pause.

“By the way,” Emily says, closing the drawer and moving onto the last one, “the temporary Head of Research is going to be Dr. Adrian Lim. He's very level-headed, very by-the-book. Hopefully the two of you will get along better than, um. Than you and I did.”

He winces and looks away. “Could you…come by for dinner tonight?”

She wonders how much it took out of him to ask her that. “I can't,” she mutters, and she’s genuinely sorry. “My plane leaves in three hours.”

“Is this the last time I'm seeing you before you leave, then?”

“Yes.”

He looks at her, and she watches as his eyes darken slowly, and it's almost as though the last few months of distance and silence and coldness never happened. He crosses to her desk, and, taking her face in his hands, presses his mouth to hers.

She pulls away immediately and jogs for the door, and he looks on, resigned. But she closes the door, locks it, and turns back to face him, her blue eyes alight with the fire that he's missed so much.

They crash into each other in the middle of her office. She grabs fistfuls of his collar, the way she used to, and he wraps his arms around her and hauls her close, the way he used to, and for the next few minutes or hours or however long it is, they kiss frantically, trying to make up for lost time.

“Your rules,” he pants against her lips. They nearly tip over a filing cabinet; he lifts her bodily and sets her on the edge of her desk. She’d forgotten how strong he was, how easily he could toss her around.

“Fuck my rules. I missed you,” she mumbles, planting a lingering kiss on his bottom lip and tugging at it gently with her teeth. The feel of his hips between her thighs, his hands dragging along her back and shoulders, send her reeling through the heady, white-hot memories and convoluted emotions she’s tried to bury. 

“Do you think we could start over? Try again?” He asks; he moves to kiss the corner of her mouth, but stops when he feels her go still. He opens his eyes and finds her staring back at him with sudden clarity. She has this way of creating distance without lifting a finger, and normally he lets her go when she drifts away. But this time, he grasps her chin gently and holds her in place.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he says, and she sighs.

“It’s just that… I once warned Jesse against getting attached. She was mourning Tommasi, and I told her that sentimentality is a weakness here at the FBC. And now, here I am, falling into the same trap.”

He regards her, frowning, and for a moment she expects him to withdraw. 

“Having you is worth potentially losing you,” he finally says. “It’s as simple as that for me.”

“Well,” she sputters, taken aback by the casualness of his admission. “Well, i-it isn’t for me.”

He releases her chin. She peers up at his face, unsure of what she’s hoping to find there, but his expression is only thoughtful, veiled.

“What do you want to do, then?” He asks, his arm around her loosening slightly. She finds that she doesn’t quite want him to let go just yet; she slides her arms around his ribs and buries her face in his now-wrinkled collar.

“I don’t know,” she mumbles after a moment. “I don’t know.”

“Hey,” he says gently, running a hand up and down her back. “That’s okay. Just promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“Stay in touch while you’re out of town? I’m not asking for daily phone calls, or anything like that. Just something, every once in a while. To let me know that you’re okay.”

“Yes.” Emily nods. “Of course.” She turns and reaches for her clipboard. He steps back, giving her much-needed breathing room, and runs a hand distractedly through his hair as she rips out the corner of a blank sheet of paper and scribbles quickly on it.

“That’s the phone number and address I’ll be at,” she explains, handing the paper to him. He looks bewildered as he reads. 

“North Dakota?” He exclaims. “But—that’s—”

“It’s far,” Emily says ruefully. “I know.”

He seems to resign himself to the fact, and folds the scrap of paper up and tucks it in his breast pocket. He asks to see her notepad, and jots down his phone number for her. And then they stand there, staring at each other.

“This is goodbye, then,” he says. He frowns down at his boots. 

“Yes,” she says quietly, looking away. “For now.”

He steps close and, scooping her jaw gently into his hands, gives her one last kiss. She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to memorize the taste of him, the warm, solid press of his body, the detergent lingering in his uniform.

And then he's releasing her, and he's walking out of her office in wide, quick strides. And he's gone.

\---

Simon, slightly airsick and a little grumpy, exits a rickety plane at a tiny regional airport, sucks in a lungful of fresh air to clear his head, and pauses on the runway, lost. An airline worker kindly directs him into the building, giving him perfunctory directions to the pickup zone.

It’s late fall, which North Dakota wears well. The sky is clear, the air cool and crisp. He takes a moment to appreciate the stretch of uninterrupted sky overhead and the solid ground under his feet; then, he checks the pockets of his jeans and puffer vest, examines the flower he’s carried in hand all the way from New York, shoulders his duffle bag, and ambles into the airport.

She’s leaning against a small gray car in the pickup area, wearing a sporty black jacket and combat boots and looking a bit gaunt. Her hair has grown out a bit, and she shoves it out of her eyes as she scans the crowd of tired travelers, frowning. He hangs back for a moment to stare.

She finally sees him as he approaches, and her face does that indecisive little flicker that it does when she isn’t sure which emotion to display, and he can’t help but smile.

He stops a respectable distance from her and hands her the rose.

“I managed to not drop it or sit on it,” he explains, grinning boyishly, the corners of his eyes crinkling. She draws her shoulders in as she accepts the rose, and twirls the stem restlessly between her fingers, obviously thrown by the gesture. Jesus, has she always been this adorable?

She mumbles a thank-you and lifts the flower to her nose. It’s a beautiful, delicate, pink little thing, its aroma mostly faded; it’d looked almost comically out of place in Simon’s rough, blocky hands. 

He tilts his head, watching her, still grinning. She glances up at the face she’s only seen in photos and daydreams since she’d left New York, and realizes that phone calls and letters aren’t nearly the same as seeing him in person. She’s caught somewhere between wanting to shove him, wanting to turn around and flee, and wanting to tackle and kiss him.

“Um-m,” she blurts, dropping her hand to her side. “How was your trip?”

He opens his mouth to answer.

“You know,” she barrels on, “I showed a photo of you to my mom, after I told her you were coming to visit? And she thinks you’re ‘awfully handsome’. Turns out she’s into guys in uniform. She’s really excited to meet you. She keeps going on about how I will need someone to take care of me once she’s gone, which is patently ridiculous and also incredibly morbid—”

Simon tugs her into a hug, interrupting her nervous rambling, and buries his mouth in her hair, and mutters: “I missed you, Em.”

She takes a breath, leaning into him, and plants a kiss on his cheek. “I missed you, too.”

They pull apart reluctantly. Emily watches as Simon throws his bag into the trunk. They get into her car, and she starts the engine, and they drive off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...
> 
> ...
> 
> Uhhhh okay look I have no valid excuse for this. I meant to write something normal and wholesome but then I thought, what if Simon and Emily have dark sides to them? And then this happened!? And now I'm going to go hide byeee
> 
> Feedback is appreciated!!


	4. lip gloss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily overhears an interesting conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags:
> 
>   * Fluff
>   * Unintended eavesdropping
>   * Simon and Langston are bffs
>   * Emily wears lip gloss?? Idk sometimes she looks like she's got a bit of lip makeup on
> 


“Well,” Emily says as she rises to her feet after a surprisingly productive meeting with the new Head of Security, “we managed to get through our entire agenda in half an hour. I'd say that's an accomplishment.”

Simon smiles, rising to his feet as well from behind his desk. “Definitely. Pleasure meeting with you, as always.”

Emily grins back. A beat of silence passes. Simon, rubbing absently at the back of his neck, looks as though he wants to say something else, but someone knocks on his door just then.

“Yes?” He calls. 

The door opens, and Langston pokes his head in. “Oh,” he says uncertainly when he sees Emily. “I can come back later?”

“Oh no, we're just finishing up.” Simon waves his hand, suddenly looking nervous. “I'll see you around, Pope.”

Emily glances between Langston and Simon before quietly taking her leave. It probably isn’t her business, but she can't help but wonder at the strange shift in Simon's demeanor. She makes it all the way to the sector elevator before realizing she's left her clipboard on Simon's desk. Cursing under her breath, she jogs back to Simon's office, and raises her hand to tap on his door.

“—ever going to tell Pope that you've got the hots for her?” Langston’s voice. 

Emily freezes.

“Never, if I can help it,” Simon replies flatly. “Now, about the updates to the Containment chapter in the new hire manual—”

“If you won't tell her, I will,” Langston interrupts, huffing. “I can't stand watching you stare at her like a kicked dog anymore.”

“Don't you fucking dare, Fred.”

“So what are you hoping to do by keeping quiet? Huh? Do you think she'll miraculously read your mind one day and know how you feel?”

“Dammit, can we please stay on topic?” Simon sounds exasperated. “Look, I'm never going to tell her how I feel, okay? End of story.”

“But _why?_ ”

“There’s no point. I mean, she's—she's the fucking Head of Research, and I'm just—”

“ _Just_ the Head of Security?”

“I mean, yeah. I don't know jack shit about science. Can barely make sense of her memos.”

“What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”

“We're in different leagues. She's a fucking genius; her brain runs circles around mine.”

“So you're saying she's, what, too good for you?” A beat. “I'm sorry, but that's bullshit, Simon. Security is just as challenging and important as Research. I thought you knew that.”

“I do, man. But half her staff call me a mall cop behind my back. There's no way she'd want to date me.”

“Just because some Research jerks—”

“Look,” Simon cuts in, sounding tired, “can you please just drop it? I appreciate your confidence. Really, I do. But I'm not going to tell Pope anything. That's that.”

Silence, then a sigh. “All right. Fine.”

Emily stands there, mind spinning, and waits until Simon and Langston are reasonably far into their conversation about the Containment chapter before knocking on the door. At Simon’s “come in”, she schools her expression and opens the door a crack.

“Pope?” Simon rises halfway from his chair, looking confused.

“Hey,” she says, grinning apologetically as she steps in. “I left my clipboard behind.”

Langston smiles blandly at her as she leans over Simon's desk and plucks her clipboard from the mass of papers.

“Sorry for the interruption,” she mutters, glancing over at Simon. He, to his credit, nods and says something polite, his face a perfect mask of indifference. 

Emily closes the door and meanders absently toward the elevator, thinking.

\---

A few weeks later, Langston hops into the elevator and makes his way to Simon's office, arriving a minute before their agreed-upon meeting time. He knocks on the door, and hears muffled shuffling.

“Yes?” Simon calls after a beat. Langston cracks the door open and sees Emily rising from her chair, smoothing a strand of hair away from her face.

“Oh,” Simon says, looking distracted. “Come in. Pope and I are just finishing up.”

Langston holds the door open for Emily, who, to his confusion, smiles radiantly at him as she steps out. He sits down slowly in front of Simon and observes the Head of Security for a moment.

Simon fidgets under Langston’s scrutiny. “What?”

“You've got a little…” Langston leans forward slightly, squinting at Simon's cheek. 

Simon blinks, then swipes quickly at his cheek with the collar of his uniform. He watches helplessly as a smile grows steadily on Langston’s face.

“Was that lip gloss?” Langston demands with barely-contained excitement.

“Okay,” Simon says, clearly panicking. “You wanted to discuss security updates on the fourth level of the Panopticon—”

“Tell me that was lip gloss!” Langston crows.

“Yes, fine!” Simon practically yells. “It was lip gloss. _Jesus!_ Are you happy now?”

Langston jumps up, pumping a fist into the air. “Yes!” He whoops.

“For fuck’s sake, Fred, keep it _down_ —”

Outside, Emily, having lingered for a few moments, walks away, smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;)  
> Happy Valentine's!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are appreciated! <3


End file.
